Bam Bam 'aka' Gannon

On the Thursday before Easter when Arlen got home from work in the late afternoon I left and went into the city to buy some groceries and new clothes for the kids. It also happened to be the same night we got two loads of pit run for the drive-way. The gravel got delivered right after I left and the bobcat showed up just 20 minutes before I got home.

When the bobcat arrived Arlen called me to see when I would be home. Since I was due to arrive home in only 20 minutes he put a movie on for the kids and thought they would be okay while he went out to discuss things with the bobcat driver. Arlen was outside for only 10 minutes and thought he should check on the kids and make sure they were still doing good watching the movie. When he got up to the house Theya was outside with the bottle of hand soap and a wash cloth from the bathroom and trying to wash the deck. She said she wanted to make it clean before Grandpa and Grandma arrived on the weekend.

When he looked in the house Kalen was still watching the movie but he could hear sounds coming from the bathroom. He yelled in the door to ask Gannon what he was doing and Gannon replied with, "Washing my boots." Arlen was like 'NO!!!' and took off his boots and walked in the house and into the bathroom to find Gannon trying to wash his muddy boots in the bathtub. Arlen walked in to find that Gannon had gotten mud all over the bathtub, windowsill, toilet, mirror, sink, down the front of the cabinet and all over the floor trying to wash his boots. Arlen just kept telling Gannon that I was going to be really mad because I had just cleaned the bathroom. I have never seen a bigger mess in my life!!! I wish I had taken a picture of it but I was so mad at the time and I just cleaned the bathroom.

This has made me think back to last year in April 2010 to something else Gannon did.

One morning while getting ready for church in a hurry I got Theya's clothes down from her closet and brought them into the living room. I left her pink plastic hangers in the living room because we were in a hurry. Later that day I went to put the hangers away and couldn't find one of them anywhere. I thought it probably got under the couch and next time I moved it to vacuum I'd find it and I never thought about it again.

In April last year we were only having fires every couple of days when the weather was cooler. It had been about a week between fires and it was a cooler rainy day so I decided to light a fire. Arlen was outside working. We had a fan on the wood stove and when the fire got hot enough we'd turn the fan on to heat the entire house. I turned the fan on and then went into the kitchen to start doing something. A little while later it started to smell like something was burning but the smoke alarm wasn't going off. I began looking all over the house and couldn't find anything on fire but I could smell smoke in the hallway. I couldn't see anything wrong and thought maybe it could be electrical and inside the wall. I went outside and called Arlen in to have a look. He could smell it too and couldn't find anything on fire either. I was just about to call 911 when Arlen was looking all around the wood stove with a flashlight. Then he discovered one of Theya's pink plastic hangers up on top of the wood stove shoved all the way back up under the bricks where you couldn't see it or reach it. Gannon said he had shoved it back there. The reason it smelled so much in the hallway was because the fan was blowing it back there and the living room didn't smell at all.

The kids and I left and went for a walk because the smell and smoke was getting so bad. Arlen opened all the windows and had fans running. Then he tried to scrape off what plastic he could reach with a long stick and got the fire really hot and burned off all the residue. It took hours but he finally got it all off. From then on any time we ever lit the fire we would check all around the wood stove for any toys or hangers.

This has led me to remember something else Gannon did.

Back in November before we moved, we stayed at my Mom's house to make packing easier with the kids. One morning I was in my Mom's kitchen doing the dishes and Gannon walked around the corner with a huge knife and I mean huge, about a seven inch blade. I grabbed it from him and ran into the living room to make sure Kalen and Theya were okay. They were okay and I couldn't find any damage done to anything and I was so thankful that everyone was okay. Later on that day when I was in the living I thought the leather ottomans at the back of the couch looked funny, like they got all scratched up. I looked closer and realized they had been stabbed all over. Gannon had stabbed them at least 30-40 times with that huge knife. My Mom wasn't home and I had to call and tell her what happened. Grandma was okay and just thankful no one got hurt. I was just amazed that Gannon didn't stab himself at all. My Mom kept her knives in a low drawer and that's how Gannon was able to get a hold of one. After that we put them on top of the fridge. This is why we have our home 'super toddler proof'.

I'm sure Bam Bam 'aka' Gannon is going to do many more things like this and continue to live up to his nickname.

Here's a video of Gannon showing us his 'moves'.