Good Choices and Destruction

Ah, winter... Time for snow, cold, cabin fever, and hijinks.

My kids are officially stir crazy and getting into everything. Thereby making me stir crazy as well.

Remember way back...when I wrote about Destructo Baby? Well, leave him to his own devices, and he now has become Destructo Kid. Today I discovered a lovely smiley-faced stick figure kicking a ball drawn on the top of my leather-covered coffee table. When confronted with said picture, he made a grimace like "whoops" and said, "But I did it on purpose and I am sorry."

Um, say what?

Witness one of our laptop keyboards.

And this is after I had replaced the "s" key which he had removed and oh-so-slyly replaced. Only backward. The kid has no game.

Asked about this, you get the same response. I guess he should get some points for honesty. Then again, when asked who ate all of the whipped cream out of the fridge this morning, I was informed that we have a ghost in the house. And that is who did it, darn him.

The middle kid is also looking at creative ways to send me to the loony bin. This week, it is all about making bad choices and good choices. His bad choices take him off of the computer for the day (oh, the horror!) to which I am informed that I am no longer his "very best favorite friend." So, the future lawyer (or con artist, not sure which...) has proposed a little compromise. Ok, he will take the bump off of the computer, but maybe not for the whole day. Maybe if he makes good choices, then he can earn the privilege back? Hmmm... Sounded good to me, and I admired his problem-solving skills and initiative.

Until he then immediately started walking around the house, looking around, and saying things like this...

"Um, Mom, I was going to give the cat a haircut and then I thought I had better not. I made a good choice, right?"

"Yeah..."

(Pauses, walks, looks around...)

"Mom, I was going to give you a Karate chop, and then I stopped. I made a good choice, right?"

"Ummmm, well, yes, but..."

"Mom, you are the best mom from here to the moon. I told you that when I thought it, so that was a good choice, right?"

(Me, the dim bulb, figuring it out...) "Yes, and thank you, I love you, too, but that isn't how this works. This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy."

Deviant little turds. Gotta love 'em.