Veterans Day and the Play-Doh Wars

JayJay came home on Veterans Day and announced that he had learned about the Play-Doh Wars in school.

Huh?

I attended first grade and I had no memory of learning about the Play-Doh Wars.  So it must be a more contemporary war that had occurred after my first grade year so long ago.  But I keep up on current events and still the name didn't ring a bell.

So I speculated on what he could possibly be talking about.  Perhaps they had modeled historic battles with Play-Doh.  Perhaps they had actually had a Play-Doh war at school that day, lobbing gobs of brightly colored clay at each other across protective desk barriers.

In the words of C. S. Lewis, "Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"

I gave up trying to figure it out.  "What are the Play-Doh Wars?" I asked.

"They are in China," he said.  "My teacher showed us pictures of them."

Oooohhhh.  It clicked.  He was trying to say clay warriors.  He had learned about the Terracotta Army of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang.

The Case of the Disappearing Band-Aids

This spring, JayJay learned how to boost himself into the large pine tree in our yard. His favorite thing now is to climb the tree. If I can't see him playing on the grass, I just have to look up to find him.

Of course, Max wanted to climb the tree too. But he couldn't get into the tree on his own. He pestered me for help, which I refused to give him in an effort to postpone his tree climbing until he obtained what I felt would be a more physically capable age. I explained that if he wanted to climb the tree, he had to be able to get in and out of it himself. He's only four and I hoped that he wouldn't figure it out until next summer. My hopes were dashed when he figured out how to get in and out of the tree on his own, only a few weeks later than JayJay. He grabs the lowest branch, which is over his head, and walks up the trunk until he can wrap his legs around the branch too, then wriggles until he is sitting upright. He is now in the tree just as much as JayJay. Sometimes he climbs so high he scares himself (and me), but that doesn't stop him from climbing so high. Max's physical abilities continue to amaze me. He runs faster and has more stamina than his six-year-old brother.

After one of Max's morning tree climbing episodes, he came into the house with a long, bleeding scratch across the palm of his hand. Since it was too long for a single band-aid, my man bandaged it with two, their edges overlapping slightly so they stuck together in one rectangle.

Later that afternoon, we took the family to play at a local park. JayJay, Max, and Third ran around on the playground equipment while I took the dog into the field so she could play too. My man supervised the boys. He has now named the playground "The Apparatus of Death" because of Third's tendency to repeatedly walk off the top platform, whether someone is there to catch him or not.

Pretty soon they needed a bathroom break. When Max came out of the bathroom, the two band-aids on his hand were gone. My man looked all over for those band-aids, not to put them back on, but because nothing is grosser than finding someone's dirty old band-aid where you are playing, or even worse, stuck to your shoe or something. No matter how hard he looked, my man could not find those band-aids anywhere. He gave up and we went about our day.

Hours later, we were getting our boys ready for bed. My man lifted up Third's shirt to undress him and put his pajamas on and made a startling discovery. There were the band-aids, perfectly taped to Third's tummy, as if purposefully placed there. We asked Max how they had gotten there. Here is his version of the story:

"Well, I needed to go to the baffroom. Water was going down in the toilet that was right there without a door and it would come back up and it would go in a flood. Ender went in it and I took him out of the baffroom and the band-aid fell off me and I thought they landed in the grass but they disappeared on Third's stomach."

So apparently, there was some sort of trouble with the urinal that made Max believe it was going to overflow so he grabbed Third and carried him out. When he carries Third, he has to wrap both arms around his waist and heave. So somehow the band-aids must have transferred to Third's tummy while Max was carrying him. When searching for the lost band-aids, my man never considered looking on the other children for them.

Married Life: Sharing Toothbrushes

While I was in the shower washing my hair, my man was brushing his teeth at the bathroom sink. He said, "Honey, if I accidentally used your toothbrush to brush my teeth, would you want me to tell you?"

Unable to see him and thinking that he must currently be using my toothbrush, I said, "Yes. Did you?" I figured I would just get a new toothbrush when I got out of the shower.

He sounded slightly sheepish when he answered. "Yes. Like a week and a half ago."

"WHAT? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I was never, ever going to tell you," he confessed. "I didn't realize until I had finished. I rinsed it really, really good. REALLY good! I think it was dark."

Meanwhile, I am laughing and gagging in the shower. "Gross!"

After I got out of the shower, I stood at the sink, staring at my fouled toothbrush. A moment of hesitation later, I grabbed it and began brushing. What the heck? There was no point in getting a new toothbrush after a week and a half.

Condom Curiosity

My man was in the shower and I was lingering in bed, unwilling to admit that it was time to wake up and face the day.  Max came into my room and climbed into bed with me.  He snuggled for a very brief time and then sat up and started bouncing around.  In the process of being a hooligan, he knocked my man's pillows onto the floor and discovered a surprise hidden underneath them, a condom in a shiny gold wrapper where I had stashed it for later use.

Max picked it up.  "What's this, Mommy?"

"Oh, it's something of Daddy's," I answered.

"But what is it?" he insisted.

With an internal snicker, I said, "You can go ask him if you want."  I was very interested to see how my man would explain a condom to our four-year-old.

I listened intently as Max entered the bathroom and asked, "What's this, Daddy?" as he held up the condom in its golden wrapper.

My man's answer was as vague as mine and disappointed my desire for entertainment.  "That's Mommy's and Daddy's.  Give it to me."

"Ok," said Max.

He handed the condom to his dad and went about his business.  I assumed that was the end of the potentially awkward issue.

Many hours later, we had put the boys to bed for the night.  I was downstairs working on a query letter and synopsis for my novel.  Max came downstairs and moseyed about.

"What are you doing out of bed, Max?" I asked.

"Nuffing," he answered.  He sauntered over to the kitchen counter.

"Do I need to spank your bottom?"

"No."  He reached up and pulled a pair of scissors out of the pencil holder on the counter top.

"Get back to bed."

"Ok," he started sidling toward the stairs with the scissors hidden behind his back.

Because I wasn't really paying attention as I worked, I suddenly realized he was trying to sneak scissors up the stairs.  Visions of crooked haircuts, shredded blankets, and stabbed brothers immediately accosted me.  "Wait a second!  Put those back!"

"Fine," he sighed and put the scissors back in their container.

"Get to bed!"

He went.  I continued working.  Later, my man joined me to watch a show on my computer.  We were sitting together on the couch when we heard evidence of a little boy out of bed again.

"It's your turn," I said as I paused the show.  We take turns investigating the after-bedtime shenanigans of our hoodlums.

My man went upstairs.  He was gone for some time.  When he returned he had a handful of condoms and he said, "Max emptied the entire box of condoms.  One of them was opened.  There are pieces of wrapper all over their bedroom.  I couldn't find them all."

Max had somehow managed to rip one of the condom wrappers open and thoroughly explored the contents before my man caught him and confiscated it.  Max was quite disappointed.

We told the story to my family the next day and my younger brother clarified for us why Max wanted the scissors for the condom.  "He was trying to poke a hole in it.  He wants a little brother!"

Who Is Mommy's Boyfriend?

My man was away from home until late last night. He was chaperoning the Morp dance (a backwards prom where girls ask the boys out) at the high school. He woke up this morning with a headache.

"Were you drinking last night?" I teased.

"No!" he said.

"Well, what were you doing that made you hungover this morning?"

"I'm not hungover," he protested. "It's just a headache."

Later, while we were eating lunch with the kids, he reciprocated. "And what were you doing last night?" he asked in a tone that suggested I was being naughty while he was away.

"My boyfriend came over," I said archly.

"Your boyfriend?" said my man.

"Yeah," I said. "He got here about 11:15 and he stayed all night." That's about the time my man got home after the dance.

"He did?" JayJay asked, joining the conversation. "Where did he sleep?"

"In my bed," I answered.

"Then where did Daddy sleep?" JayJay asked.

I laughed. "JayJay, who is Mommy's boyfriend?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

I gestured at my man with the fork in my hand.

"Daddy?" JayJay guessed.

I nodded. "Yep."

"Daddy is your boyfriend?" exclaimed Max with shock and excitement. "I didn't know that!"

Registration Ruination

One of our vehicles is a 21-year-old Ford Tempo. I've had this vehicle since 1998. It's a beater, but it still works great. My man uses it to get back and forth to work everyday. We keep it registered in Alaska. Recently, the registration came due. I got online and renewed the registration. Yesterday, I received the new registration in the mail. I opened the envelope and showed my man the new certificate and sticker.

"Honey, here is the new registration for your car."

"Ok," he said.

Then I set it on the counter so he could put it in the car when he left for work in the morning.

This morning I noticed Max cutting up a piece of paper. I didn't stop him. It was a harmless activity and kept him occupied while I did the dishes. I should have paid closer attention.

Experimenting with Fake Crying

Max bent over without paying attention and smacked his head on the corner of the TV stand. The sharp point left a goose egg on his forehead. He straightened, grabbed his head, and started to cry. In tears, he turned to me for comfort, reaching up so that I would pick him up.

"Oh!" I said. "Poor boy!" I picked him up and kissed his owie and then held him close while he cried.

One-year-old Third observed all of this. He had been standing right next to Max when the accident happened. Turning to face the TV, Third bent forward and deliberately hit his head on the screen. He looked back at me and gave an experimental "Waaah."

When that elicited no response from me, he turned back to the TV and hit his head against it again, a solid thunk on the glass. Then he looked to see if I had noticed and voiced a fake cry once more.

He was so cute that I just laughed at him. Funny baby!