sometimes you don’t have to look very far

So, I always try to find the humor in a situation lest I lose what little sanity I have left. As the title says, sometimes it doesn’t take that much effort.

oedipal complexes

T, age 5 came into the bathroom. I was sitting down watching R wash her hands. Neither of them is allowed in the bathroom alone while washing because of several recent events (more on that later).

T: I need a kiss.

Me: Hold on just a minute, I am helping your sister wash her hands.

Apparently, this wasn’t good enough. He came over, placed a hand on either side of my head, turned my face toward him, and planted a big old kiss on my lips. He turned around to leave the room, but just before exiting, his voice rang back to me, “And that is how you kiss a woman!”

on why we should be product testers

If anything can last a year in our house, it definitely deserves the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. We are not a gentle family. Through the years, many incidences have revealed to us just how creative our children can be.

Plastic golf clubs and golf balls – please do not ever consider giving them to my family. Within two days of receipt, they will be turned into weapons. After repeated blows to the head and body of any passing sibling, the end falls off of the club, and little jagged bits of plastic stare angrily at knit fabrics, furniture, and delicate skin. Although they are confiscated by loving parents and thrown into the nearest trash receptacle, the sharp edges invariably pierce the plastic, and the prying eyes of children discover their bounty and spirit it away for use in the next surprise attack.

Safely suction-cup-ended arrows make wonderful ceiling tile darts once the suction is removed. K’nex and Lego Technics may be formed into various weapons of mass destruction – the self-loading, quadruple band, rubber-band revolver being but one example.

A metal pot with large wooden spoon is especially dangerous. Not only can the spoon be wielded as a club, it can also be launched. Should the fancy strike, the pot can be placed on the unsuspecting head of a sibling then repeatedly bashed by the spoon and other heavy toys.

Markers, crayons, play-dough, scissors – these are kept under lock and key.

Imagine my joy when they invented the Aqua doodle pad. Here was a toy that was soft. You write on it with markers filled with water. The lids screw on these markers in a counter-clockwise direction to confuse and slow down the average small child. Should the child write on a surface other than the pad, it is only water, and causes a lot less damage than that sharpie I am still trying to remove from the mini-blinds, pocket doors, and radiator covers.

So, before taking five minutes Friday to get an update on one of those doctor’s appointments I was worried about (update posted below), I made sure that the little ones were playing with the aqua doodle. They had recently discovered they could use sponges on them to get a different effect, and had also recently learned to unscrew the marker caps, but I still figured it was safer than, say, a densely packed flying missile (also known in other parts of the world as a book).

Five minutes. That’s all. I was only out of the room for 300 seconds.

Somehow it never occurred to me to lock the bathtub toys in my personal safe. That might be because I don’t have one.

I walked into the room to see R gingerly carrying an overflowing plastic watering can toward the doodle pad. A quick look around the room clued me in to the fact that this was at least the sixth such trip. T, ever the gallant brother, squealed out, “She did it!” before rapidly disappearing from the lower level of the house.

And don’t get me started on what they can do with bubbles.