Did My Child Really Say/Do That?

Spaghetti dinners are messy enough without children at the table; however, I’ve joined the ranks of crazy parents giving their equally crazy children spaghetti.  What could possibly go wrong with giving a 22-month-old boy spaghetti?  I believe long, squiggly noodles, red stainable sauce, and enough Parmesan cheese to whiten the world equals disaster.  Add in a helpful almost four-year-old brother and the apocalypse is around the corner. 

In order to truly understand my spaghetti story I should give you a little background on my children.  My 22-month-old, Gabriel, is a sneaky little guy who reminds me slightly of Stewie from Family Guy.  His older brother, Caiden, is constantly on the lookout for sneak attacks and takes much pleasure seeing his little brother in timeout.  He also, at times, takes on the disciplinarian role.  This usually ends up with screaming from both boys.  At times, things can get a little messy.  Ergo, the spaghetti!  Gabriel decided last night that he was done eating spaghetti and proceeded to lift his plate over his head.  Caiden, our self-proclaimed sergeant-at-arms of the table, reached over to grab the plate.  The little one decided he didn’t want his brother’s help and turned the plate of spaghetti over.  All that was left was for my husband and me to look on in amused horror at the sight before us:  Gabriel was wearing a look of shock and a spaghetti toupee.  Cries of “not it” echoed through the dining room, but my husband, being the strapping man he is, volunteered graciously to clean up HIS boy.

 

While Gabriel is the boy in constant motion, Caiden is our thinker.  A couple of months ago we were at my husband’s parents’ house.  We were getting ready to go shopping (another blog topic all together!) and Caiden wanted to take a billion toys.  Included in his assortment of toys was an animal-printed pair of earmuffs.  To keep him from bringing that along I told him he could not bring any toys because they might get lost at the store.  I went back to getting ready pretty pleased with myself and my sneaky ways!  Two seconds later Caiden was at my side with an innocent expression and those darned earmuffs.  “Caiden,” I say, “I said you couldn’t bring any toys.”  Caiden, my lawyer-in-the-making-son, smiles up at me.  “I know, Mommy, but earmuffs aren’t toys.”  Busted!  Knowing I had been bested by my three-year-old son, I relented and let him take the earmuffs.  My husband and I, however, did not relish the idea of taking a 3-year-old boy with 40-year-old woman earmuffs into the mall.  So, we hatched a plan.  It went a little something like this:  when Caiden had his earmuffs on in the van, Chad turned the volume down on his Veggie Tales video.  Caiden exclaimed that he couldn’t hear his video.  Chad replied by saying that he couldn’t hear because of the earmuffs.  When Caiden took the earmuffs off, Chad, via the stealthy steering wheel volume control, quickly turned the volume back up.  This went on for several minutes, until Caiden was convinced that his precious leopard print earmuffs were making him deaf.  Chalk one up for the “work smarter, not harder” parenting approach. 

These are only a few of the millions of crazy things that happen in our household.  If you have your own stories of dinner disasters or times where your own children, little siblings, nieces or nephews, have bested you, please tell! 

**On a quick note:  My last blog posting generated a lot of traffic.  I encourage comments even if they are of differing opinions.  However, I respectfully ask that if you do comment, please keep them respectful.  We don’t always have to agree and I never stated that my opinions were the correct ones, so please, keep your comments clean, respectful, and mature.  Also, any and all comments that contain swearing or other derogatory comments will be deleted.