Thursday, October 13, 2005

"MOM PLease staY owT"

....this on a sticky note on the front door as I returned from a morning coffee with my friend Audra. I knock, because I don't want to ruin any nice surprise the kids have concocted for me.

D lets me in, timorously. My suspicion mounts. My ideas of kid-made surprises I might consider "nice" evaporate like so much dry ice. "Why did you want me to stay out?" I ask, thinking by now that i really don't want to know, and wondering just where in sam hill Andy is.

"Um....Sam threw Tang at my door. Don't kill us."

I know this is not the full story.

Come to find out, the kids had a Tang fight. David instigated it by dumping a glass on Sam while she was doing her math, and Sammie retaliated by throwing a glassful at D's retreating back as he slammed his door shut. D re-retaliated and doused her door accordingly.

Andy was blissfully taking a shower. The Tang fight happened in the five-minute window between Andy's stepping in and my coming home to a powder-blue sticky note. 5 minutes.

Calming breaths. Ohhhmmmmm....

SO our school (school comes in many forms, oh yesss, preciousss) consisted of murphy's oil soap, a sponge and a towel. The kids cleaned each other's doors. Then I had to shampoo the carpet (thankfully I have a Kirby with attachments).

There will no longer be any Tang in this house. (At least not for a LONG while.) So let it be written, so let it be done. <---(oblique reference to The Ten Commandments)

2 comments:

Corene said...

I want to say it is like my little kittens. I hear a "crash" in the kitchen or another part of the house. So I go to see what happened and there the kittens are looking at me like if they are saying "who me? not it was her! not me!"

Annecourager said...

I think that is one of the most challenging things of parenting: sifting through the stories to determine where to assign the most blame and dispense justice/discipline accordingly. OY!