Bars...

While I was in the UK, on a 4 day solo voyage, people kept remarking on my FB updates -- especially those about the kids. One relative said, "It's wonderful! You're so entertained by your children."

Am I? Sometimes I am. When I find Fiona sitting naked on the kitchen floor, scooping cake batter out of a bowl with her toothbrush (I'll never know how she got it down from the sink), I'm certainly entertained.

Other times I'm not so sure.

Last night M and I came home from a supremely hot date night -- sofa buying. We were greeted by some garbled tale from the babysitter -- something about a chess game gone awry, and one of the boys (unclear which one) being thrown against the bedroom window. Some part of the window came loose (unclear which part), and thankfully, the bars we installed when we moved the boys upstairs prevented whichever boy it was, from falling out of the 3rd story of the house.

I always felt those bars made the room like like a cell in juvey... which is where these boys might end up anyway. Now I know they were a smart move. Ugly, but smart.

Needless to say, I'm not feeling particularly entertained at the moment. We still can't get a clear picture of what happened from the boys, and for some reason the sitter has more loyalty to them than to us, because she's not much help either. I lectured them for a good 15 minutes, and when one of them spilled a glass of water all over his breakfast, rendering the whole plate a soggy mess, I threw the whole thing in the sink and yelled a bit. At which point Bennett announced, "I thought you said if we let you nap yesterday you wouldn't be cranky today." And so I did.

Burial behavior

M's grandmother passed away last week in Denver and instead of driving to Portland for Thanksgiving, we boarded a plane for Colorado. This wasn't the first time a great-grandparent has died, but it was the first funeral the boys went to. We didn't discuss it much beforehand. It seemed to the right thing to do - send the boys (5 and 7), leave the girls (1 and 3) at home. I told the boys what to expect, they asked questions... nothing out of the ordinary.

I don't know if this happens at all funerals, but in Jewish funerals the family and close friends of the deceased (I almost wrote victim, which means I've been working a little too much) shovel dirt onto the coffin once it has been lowered into the ground.Turns out, my boys got into a bit of a pissing match about who could shovel more dirt. This would have been enough of a challenge had Efram not accidentally (we'll never really know) shoveled a heap of dirt onto Bennett's dress shoe. Nobody touches that boys' fancy clothes and walks away unscathed.

M said he thought they started to go at it graveside. I'm not sure how he distracted them ... but he did get them home in one piece. Given that Bennett has been asking lots of questions about being buried alive, I think Efram got off easy with just a scrape.