Advise for Parents

If you have children, avoid a home with a two story entryway. We have a two story entryway. From the foyer, our stairs lead to the bedrooms. I think it is 20 feet from floor to ceiling. Here is a view from the top landing.

Last week I noticed something dark in one of the chandelier bowls. I made the necessary inquiries and discovered that Drew threw a beanbag ball the prior week and it got stuck. Since this was my week to clean the foyer, I finally enlisted Andy to hold the ladder while I went to investigate. Remember the 20 feet off the floor problem? We needed an extension ladder to reach. Here's a view from the floor.

I scaled the ladder to the plant shelf. I would never keep plants there. It is 11 feet off the floor and all plants would surely die. They should call it the light bulb changing / beanbag rescue standing place. My first step was to clear the shelf of the balloon and paper airplane that have been there for about a month. Onto the ball. So there I am dangling from the ledge to twirl the light fixture so that I can reach the beanbag. I finally get my hand on it and it won't lift out. Hmm. He must have thrown that pretty high and / or hard to wedge it in so tightly. I'm surprised that the bulb didn't break. Or maybe, the outside of the ball melted and fused itself to the bulb, almost burning down the house. Yeah, that's the one. OK, burning down the house is an exaggeration but it seems plausible. Anyway, I had to unscrew the bulb to free the ball.

Drew would like to go on the record and state that he didn't try to throw the ball into the light. He would also like me to mention that while the ladder was out, I finally retrieved a Nerf bullet from the living room light fixture and that Andy was the guilty party in that incident.

This was the first time that I had ever touched the entryway chandelier. I've used the step ladder and a broom to knock down airplanes that had crashed but I've never been able to physically touch it. I used the opportunity to dust the dirty fixture and bulbs. I would like to go on the record and state that I thought about changing all the bulbs while I was up there but we are in the process of converting to compact fluorescent bulbs and I didn't have enough. So now I'm reasonably certain that the 2 1/2 year old bulbs will begin to burn out within the next two weeks.