A Daily Dose of Mischief

K (after being lectured about hitting his brother): You always say to treat people the way you want to be treated, so when T hits me, it just means he wants to be hit back.

That title probably stimulates the imagination more than intended considering that the purpose of this blog is to document behaviour of young boys who give characters like Calvin (and Hobbs) and Dennis (the Menace) a run for their money. At church yesterday, I walked into the bathroom and saw two boys standing side by side, each in front of a flush valve looking straight in front of them with careful concentration making funny noises and occasionally bouncing up and down with excitement. I wasn't surprised to find out they were both mine, T (age 9) and C (age 6). They were focused so carefully, they didn't even notice me standing behind them watching them making faces at the silver flush valves. They were quite content watching their faces distort in the curved reflective surface. It was a relief seeing them so innocently entertained. And, even now, I think, too, its pretty funny to see my distorted face in curved reflective metal. It's timeless entertainment!

My dad took our family out to dinner at a restaurant in celebration of C's recent 6 th birthday. It's a fun, much anticipated, tradition my dad started to take the whole family to out to dinner to a place selected by the Birthday person. T (age 9) ordered a Hot Chocolate. When the waitress brought it out, she politely said, "OK, here's your Hot Chocolate...careful it's Hot." Taren responded matter-of- factly --and not too quietly--with an obvious tone of 'duh' (including the lazy eyes and head shake), "Why do you think they call it 'Hot Chocolate'?"

This weekend in celebration of our oldest's 12th birthday we had dinner at a local seafood restaurant. With five young boys and a baby girl, waiting time in a restaurant is a very unpredictable time. Here are some things overheard or seen from our table: "Take me to your leader." T approached us holding a straw wrapper mustache and a sprig of parsley 'growing' out of his head. "It's a uni brow....an orange uni brow." T held a long piece of orange peel along his forehead. K attempted to make glasses out of his orange peel...only he didn't quite get all of the orange eaten off it. Baby B was eating oyster crackers, and would periodically sweep one onto the floor for the fun of it. As we were leaving, we had to pry T away from his 'art' work. I was afraid to look too closely, but he was arranging food remnants from neighboring plates onto his own. He expanded to some of the table condiments. Who needs Calvin and Hobbes when you have a ...