Destructive Destruction, ala Joel and Kaeden

I have boys.  And, by definition boys are expected to be rough, tumble, active... totally get it.  Joel from day one was calm, quiet, reserved almost.  He was obsessive about trains from nearly birth (just before his first birthday).  I wouldn't have ever expected his crazy wild antics to have occurred the way they have.  Kaeden... he came into the world as a high maintenence baby.  He was needy, clingy, and made his presence known EVERYWHERE.  He, I would have expected to be loud and obnoxious. 

Funny how when their personalities come out, they're totally the opposite.

Joel is a leader... I suppose that's natural since he's the "older" brother.  (FYI--he hasn't figured this out.  He believes wholeheartedly that he fits into Kaeden's clothes and shoes, even though he's a minimum of two sizes bigger).  He can conive Kaeden into joining him in any venture big or small.  And poor Kaeden admires his brother so much that he has to be the side kick... no matter what the punishment will be afterwards.

In the past week these boys.... oh these boys...

For Christmas and Joel's birthday we were given a large amount of underpants for our potty training duo.  While we were grateful beyond words, they were all the same size.  So, I had kept what wouldn't fit in their drawers and decided I would exchange them for larger sizes.  I should have obviously done that, because after a few months of those underpants sitting on their dresser, the boys decided the fish were going to potty train.  All the underwear, brand new, in packages, were floating along with anything else the boys could find, in the aquarium.  Problem was, I didn't realize this for a while.  Most of the fish died.  The water was so dirty you couldn't see in the aquarium whatsoever.  (They managed to put a large canister of food in there as well).  I told their dad, aquarium is going.... I'm done with fish until we have a larger home that we can display a beautiful tank in a common area.

So, when I decided to clear the tank of all the water a few days later... I thought nothing of it.  I anticipated that we were causing the tank to weigh less so it was easier to move.  No biggie right?

One night when the boys were "asleep" I went to bed as well.  I was awakened at 3am by the banging of the door and yelling "mommy, open door!".  Not an abnormality as they wake up randomly through out the night on occassion.  It wasn't until my walk down the hall when I realized things got serious... their light was on and there was some weird substance (saw dust like) under my feet.  I believe the boys hadn't gone to bed and had decided to ransack their room.  When I walked in... I realized they (Joel) had climbed onto their dresser to turn on the lights.  They (Joel) had gone into the fish tank and pulled out all the rocks and anything else that was in the one inch of water left and thrown that all throughout the room (included in, two dead fish).  They pulled out their clothes from the dresser, as well as the bins of future clothes in their closet.  The room was completely and totally destroyed... and apparently to mask it all, they found a bottle of baby powder somewhere and finished the job by shooting that into every orphase of the room.

Patting myself on the back, I did not yell or even punish them... I clothed them (because of course, when our boys party, they do it naked) and told them to either go back to bed or clean and I walked out of the room.

...they went to sleep.

The next day, they cleaned up, with direction by their mother.  ...there's the punishment in that.

And, when we moved that aquarium to the garage, I decided Joel's bed could go into the nook that held the fish at one point.  He seemed to love it.  The boys wanted to play in their new "big" room (big equalling more space).  We thought nothing of it... and a half hour later or so, when they (Joel) began wrestling and they (Kaeden) were screaming we (parents) went in and discovered they had christened their new "big" room with what else... a canister full of fish food... like it was confetti.

Prior to becoming a mom I loved Mardi Gras.  I sure wish my kids would get with bead throwing rather than fish food/baby powder throwing.  It would be just as pretty and far easier to clean.  Ugh.

A Sticky Situation

A former coworker of mine (who I'm grateful to now call my friend) would comment on people and their personalities.  Some were dry, others were humble, some were hospitable, and others were comical.  All of those personalities she appreciated because they were real... the one particular personality she didn't appreciate was what she defined as "syrupy sweet".  She said it was unrealistic and though she herself used a syrupy sweetness to woo others when needed... overall it was a character flaw, which shouldn't become ones true personality.

This morning the weather was supposed to be bitterly cold.  Because of the weather forecast I decided that we'd probably spend the morning home, inside our warm home, where we could relax in our jammies (cause we totally don't do that on a regular day) and do whatever whenever.  We made plans to go to lunch and I went to begin our day with breakfast.  Asking my crazy children what it was that they wanted to eat for breakfast I heard "fries" and "donuts" (okay doo nuts, but still).  After explaining that we were going to lunch, I helped them to decide that pancakes and oatmeal were a good breakfast option. 

After breakfast I got a phone call.  The boys went about playing, and life was good.  I watched them bounce up and down over and over on those bounce ball's with handle things.  They laughed, knocked each other over, banged into walls, etc.  You know, all those fun fun things boys do with their silly destructive nature.  They climbed onto the train tables and threw trucks and cars from it, they played their memory game (kind of) and threw pieces of the game all through the front room (and later, I discovered through the house).  After the phone call and a bit of cleaning I went back into the kitchen to discover the stupidity of my prior ways...

My children decided the kitchen should be "syrupy sweet".  The managed to empty the entire bottle of syrup all over the table, floor, and chairs.  And really, what was I to do?  It was my mistake of leaving the syrup bottle on the table and my lack of watching them that left them with the strong desire to make the house just a little bit brighter, right? 

Note: that much syrup is not nearly as sticky as when it dries on your fork. 

And, ironically it was my two year old who ran in, when I screamed, and said "I no did it, Joel, go get in time out".  ...and yes, that syrup was all over Kaeden's plate, chair, and side of the table, not Joels (so I'm pretty sure, it was the accuser, not the accused, who was in fact found sticky handed).

All in a hard days, scratch that, morning's work.  Right?