adventures in slow motion

This weekend I experienced what I can only describe as moving in slow motion. More likely what happened is I moved so fast that the world around me appeared to slow down.

Why?

Imagine, if you can, a 13 month old kid who has just learned to walk and is very excited about exploring his new found skill. Now combine that with a careless oversight on my part. I took Trent into his room to pick out some clothes for the day, and in about 3 seconds flat after I took my eyes off him, he was standing near the top of the stairs. Realizing it was way to quiet for him to be right near me (which he usually is), I immediately ran across the landing. This is when time slowed down...

I dropped whatever was in my hand, uttered the words "No! NO! NOOO! BRIANNNN!" and as my heart rate reached maximum BPM, I saw in slow motion Trent take a step forward... then slowly he made a full head over heels rotation in the air, hit his nose on a step, bounced, and was caught by Brian who was luckily coming up the stairs with a stack of nappies. Meanwhile my feet left the ground and damn near never touched until I was at the top step, staring down in disbelief at Brian's mad ninja skills. He'd managed to catch Trent before he hit the bottom of the first landing (and the wall, most likely) and not drop the stack of nappies.

Trent howled for a few seconds, then went about his business as though nothing had happened. Me... well it took a little longer for me to recover. Time travel is rough on your mental state.

The moral of this story... always, always, always close the damn baby gate. Because once they start walking, they're fast as all hell and try as you might to break the laws of physics, time and gravity are constant.