Toilet Trouble

Sometime last week, I found Mason about to stick his head in the toilet. I reacted automatically, yelling, "MASON! Get your head out of the toilet! Gross! Don't do that." And then I washed his hands and got him out of there. Last night, we had our friends over for dinner. They have a little girl Mason's age. As dinner was winding down, they disappeared and soon we heard noise above our heads, where my bathroom is. I went to investigate, and guess what I found? Sweet little Anna, intently peering into the toilet bowl... correction - sticking her head in it!

"What are you guys doing in here?!" (I have to startle them so they jerk their heads back and don't complete their objective.) As she turned to look at me, I caught sight of my sweet, obedient, perfect little boy (yeah, right!), with his hand on the toilet handle and a mischievous grin on his face. His response? "Mom, watch this!" Then he proceeds to flush the toilet and start to dip his head in it! Of course I prevented him from doing so. "Gross!" I exclaimed, At that point, I noticed that he had already accomplished this at least once, as the fringe of hair at the top of his head was already wet. Seriously, how do they come up with this?

And then there's Thomas. Yesterday, he happened to use a toilet that had already suffered the effects of being crammed full of toilet paper by some child in our home, and had water about an inch from the top. He called for some assistance and that's when I noticed the water problem. I firmly instructed him not to flush the toilet while I ran upstairs to get the plunger from our bathroom. I was not four steps up the stairway when I heard the familiar flush of the toilet. I panicked, envisioning gross, used toilet water pouring all over the floor and the mess I'd have to clean. Michael heard my agonized "NOOOOO!!!!!" and came rushing out of our room to see what was the matter. He could see the water was going down the pipes, instead of overflowing, as I had expected, so he was much calmer than I was. He showed me how to lift the lid and push "the white thing" down if the toilet is overflowing to stop more water from going in.

So, today, when I was in the bathroom, Thomas comes in very calmly and says, "I need that thing again, Mom."

"What thing?"

"This." He calmly reaches around the toilet, gets the plunger, and exits the bathroom. I figure Michael must have sent him up for it to fix yet another clogged toilet. But it's a little quiet, so I go investigate. Just as I enter the hallway toward the stairs (and the kids' bathroom), Thomas comes out and says, "it's not working!" I go in his bathroom and find the toilet overflowing 3" wide streams of water on both sides. The floor is flooding yet again. Here's where I can use my new knowledge to make it stop. I lift the lid to push down "the white thing" but it's already down! Now what?! At least this water looked pretty clear. What could I do? I got the plunger and went to work. The toilet emptied, the floor got mopped up, and we're on to the next adventure. Such fun.

My Cleaners

Mason is learning to sweep. I like teaching him - pretty soon it will be another chore I won't have to do!

Thomas has this thing about cleaning up rooms. Basically, he shoves everything in the closet. He "cleaned" Megan's a few times while I was trying to sort out old clothes. That was a little frustrating. He came and got me yesterday to show me (with great pride) his clean room:

Sneaking Cake

I have a terrible habit of sneaking chocolate. I do it all the time. As soon as I get up from the dinner table, I sneak some from the pantry, or lately, from Megan's birthday cake (which is hidden in our broken microwave). Yesterday, a little after surreptitiously cutting off a slim piece of cake for myself, I found Michael doing this:

TOTALLY MOCKING ME!!!

Check out McKenzie's reaction. She was not happy with him eating the cake like that. We had to explain to her that he was just joking around and that there was still plenty of cake left for everyone.

Funny Dinner Conversation

Yesterday was a pretty fun day. We didn't do any April Fool's jokes this year, but we shared a lot of laughs, as usual. Last night at the dinner table, we were talking about when to move McKenzie back into "the girls' room" from the playroom. I brought up an idea that I had seen in a magazine that I wanted to implement in our playroom; that being a little reading niche in the corner, complete with a cozy reading chair, lamp, and bookshelves. McKenzie reminded us that at her preschool, she had a reading loft that she could climb into and look at books or listen to music through earphones.

I suggested we build a treehouse in the playroom and put the reading corner in there, like at McKenzie's preschool. We could have a playhouse area in the other corner, complete with a play kitchen and dress-up area. Michael suggested we paint a tree on the wall, and a house on the other wall. McKenzie and Thomas got excited and started sharing their ideas. McKenzie said "We could build a double tree house! One for reading and playing, and one for playing dress-up!" Thomas added, "Yeah! And we could paint a STARWARS TREE on the wall!" (No idea how he got StarWars on the brain, but he talks about it all the time. He keeps saying he wants a StarWars trampoline.)

I jumped in and suggested that we bust out the ceiling and build play areas on the rafters. Thomas' eyes got real big at this idea, and McKenzie's face was priceless at the thought of it. You could see their brains working on how cool that would be, as they both whispered "yeah!" Then I said "Why stop at the rafters? Do you know what would be even better? If we busted out the roof and built the a tree house coming out of OUR house!" They were awestruck, as if I'd just hit upon the greatest idea of all time.

"Whoa! That would be SO COOL," Thomas said.

"Yeah! Bust out the roof, Mom!" McKenzie added. Then, as she assessed the mirth in my eyes, she said, "wait, you're joking, aren't you?"

I said I was, that we couldn't build a treehouse coming out of our house, but that I was serious about the treehouse in the playroom and the playhouse area. I encouraged them to come up with ideas and draw pictures. I'm excited for Summer to come!

We also taught the kids about squishing your head and blocking with the thumb. Kids are so fun.

Oh, on another note, Thomas said to me the other day, "I want Optimus Prime to come over. Can he, Mom?"
"No, he can't, Thomas."
"When he's little he can!"

Megan is Walking!

Okay, it's official: if Megan has someplace to go, she walks. (Unless we're driving, of course.) She is so excited about her newest achievement. She has been working on it ever since she first got that gleam in her eye on March 21st. She was standing in the kitchen, and I could tell by the look on her face and her stance that she was seriously contemplating what would happen if she picked up her left foot and moved it forward. After a bit of encouragement from me, she did it! She moved her left foot forward with success, then her right, then her left, and took two more steps before she plopped on her bottom. Yay! I was so proud of her. She has now graduated to being a toddler!