Accidents and Near Misses

A few weeks ago Anthony finally got an afternoon free to take the boat out for some fishing with a friend. The plan was for Anthony to pick him up from his house and then drive him to our house to pick up the boat. As Anthony was turning onto the street to go into his neighborhood, he got rear-ended!! Luckily no one was hurt in either car, but Anthony's bumper (which has the hitch for towing the boat!!) was smashed:

This is what the other car looked like:

So Anthony had to wait for the police to come and take an official report and he got the insurance information from the other driver. Of course, now there was no way for him to take the boat out. Bummer! We called the insurance company and played phone tag for awhile before they scheduled an appraiser to come out and assess the damage. The insurance agent suggested Anthony get an independent quote for repairs, so he got a recommendation of a good place from a mechanic friend and got a quote for about $350. Once the appraiser came, he assessed the damage at about $440 so we ended up getting a check for a little bit extra. When Anthony called the body shop (who quoted him $350) and told them he had the go ahead to get things fixed, they said they had to take back their original quote and charge him what the insurance company gave him! Can you believe that? Anthony told them no way! He called his mechanic friend back to ask for another recommendation and he said that he thought he could fix the damage himself for much cheaper, so that is what we ended up doing.

Around the same time (maybe even the same day?) I had quite the day with James! In the morning we went to a local park to try to get some of his energy out. The park has a lot of trees surrounding the playground and a very large and deep retention pond with a fountain in the middle. When we got there, there were city employees trimming some of the trees and they had their big trucks parked near the playground. Of course, those were all James wanted to play with! They warned me to keep far away from the trucks since they couldn't predict where the limbs were going to fall so I kept pulling James back to the playground and telling him that if he didn't want to play on the playground that we would have to go home. At one point, James started walking towards the retention pond and I told him to come back towards me. He stopped, looked at me and smiled. Then he took off running towards the pond! I was across the park, so I followed him as fast as I could telling him to wait for me but it just made him go faster! There is a steep bank that leads to the pond and it is covered with dead leaves and I was sure that he was going to trip and fall. By the time I caught up to him, he had jumped feet first into the pond and was covered with mucky, muddy water. I was so frustrated, I just picked him up, kicking and screaming and put him into the car.

Later that afternoon James was playing in the living room and going back and forth between the house and the back yard. Our back yard is fenced in with a really tall fence and when the weather is nice, we just leave the back door open so James and the dogs can go in and out. I was starting to get dinner ready when all of a sudden our door bell rang quickly, three times in a row. Anthony opened the door to find our neighbor from across the street, telling us that James was pushing his toy car down the road!!! I was shocked!!! How in the world did our gate get open?? The latch is large and heavy and at the very top of the fence, so we know it couldn't have been James. We always make sure to close it because of James and the dogs. The only thing I could think of was that a pest control person or something left it open because sometimes they come by without telling me that they came, so I don't know to double check the fence (which I always do because one time our landlord came to cut some bushes and left it open and I was able to close it before anyone got out). Of course, I was grateful that our neighbor happened to see him and come tell us but I was also mortified and felt like the worst parent in the world! The next day I went to Walmart and got a lock for the latch on the fence so that now nobody can open it without me or Anthony knowing it. Can you believe our kid? It is nice that he is so independent, but at times like this I wish he were more attached to us :)