So Josh goes up to give PJ some benedryl at about 8pm – he’s been in bed about 30 minutes and has been coughing. Josh goes to turn on the lamp and it won’t come on. So he goes over to the wall switch to see if that’s the problem. Meanwhile, PJ climbs up to the lamp and cries. Josh hollers at me to find a flashlight quick. I fumble around wondering why he doesn’t just turn on the lamp. The closest thing I find to a flashlight is my headlamp. So I come running in with that. We ask PJ where it hurts. He shows me his fingers, but I don’t see anything. His heart is racing and he’s still wimpering.
“Did you scrape your fingers on the brick wall?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I put my fingers in the lamp and – bzzzzzzzzzz!”
Aha. He shocked himself. Josh finds the light bulb on the floor. He apparently had unscrewed it and after Josh turned the switch on, he stuck his fingers in the socket.
So I seize this opportunity to teach him about electricity. I tell him how I shocked myself when I was little. I unplugged something and had both fingers on the metal part of the plug. I thought a blue spider bit me. I told him how we use electricity to power stuff in the house. And that it is safe as long as it stays in the wall or in the cord. I told him we don’t stick things in the socket. And if he needs to plug or unplug something, he should ask momma or poppa. I told him how we don’t cut or bite cords. I told him that if something is broken, electricians have to fix it because electricity is very dangerous. I quizzed him on what I asked and he got it all right. Then poppa came to check on us. “How is it going?” he asked.
“PJ, tell poppa what you know about electricity.” I said.
“Poppa! The lamp has blue spiders in it and I’m going to whack them – rrrrrrrrrr! – with my rake!!!”
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