Oh, MAN!

No matter how much they’ve snarked and quarreled during the day, my kids band together at night, the two of them against the two of us, the two of them against sleep, sanity, and reason. They have things to do in the night, games to play, and often, heads to be bonked.

Sometimes the shenanigans are spontaneous, but other times they require more careful planning and accompanying subterfuge. Last night’s bedtime went something like this.

Magoo: I don’t want anybody to lay with me tonight Dad.
Dan: Okay.
Laylee: Are you going to be coming back upstairs anymore tonight?
Dan: Ummm…Are you going to be getting out of bed and being crazy?
Laylee and Magoo: NO!
Dan: Okaaaaay…

So when I went to check on them an hour later because I was worried that their stomps would pound through the ceiling, I opened the door to find them marching around in a circle and chanting with huge grins on their faces, their feet working like tiny jackhammers. All the lights were off. They didn’t notice me standing there until I spoke up, “You guys! Hey! You guys! It sounds like some people in here don’t want to go to swimming lessons tomorrow morning.”

They scattered out of sight under their covers. “Goodnight,” I called.

Then I went into the next room to work on getting things ready for the baby. I mean, if she’s born and there’s no bumper pad on the crib, we just won’t be able to bring her home from the hospital, now will we? I puttered around for about 30 seconds when I heard the raucous laughter and stomping begin again.

“HEY!” I called out.

“Okay, Mom!” Magoo answered.

I fluffed some stuffed animals and placed them in her crib just for the effect when she sees it for the first time. I know little babies are not supposed to sleep with a bunch stuff in their cribs until they’re much older and that they’re supposed to sleep on their backs and be bathed just enough but not too much and not eat solid foods or drink alcohol in their bottles for the first few weeks of life. As I was putting the freshly-ironed curtains up on the rod, I heard the kids start again.

“You guys! KNOCK IT OFF!”

Magoo responded sheepishly, “Mom. Where ARE you?”

“I’m right next door in the baby’s room putting stuff away.”

“Oh, man!”

Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, man, are they bad at deception! When they want to get away with something, they still pretty much come up to me and say, “I’m about to go do something I’m not supposed to do, okay? But please don’t check.”

Yesterday, for example, Magoo was playing with a piece of plastic trash he’d found on the bathroom floor. I asked him what it was and he said it was a little cup he was going to drink from when he didn’t have a big cup to drink from. I nodded my head absentmindedly.

“It’s okay then? Because Dad said it wasn’t okay and I had to throw it in the trash.”

“Well then you have to throw it in the trash if Dad already told you.”

“No. He didn’t. He said it was okay too.”

I told him I’d look into that and confiscated the piece of trash.

“Oh, man!”

Yeah. I’m that good. I hope that if they become better liars, it will happen slowly over time so that my detective skills will be able to keep up.