Busted!

I'm normally not big on telling on my children when they do something naughty....but this one was too funny.  So a few weeks ago I decided to take Parker and Drew to the library during a quiet moment at home when Claire, Emma and Noah were all asleep.  All Brandon had to do was watch Paige.  Out of six kids, it was one on one.  The odds were in his favor.  This can't go wrong, right?  To be honest, I didn't know that it hadn't.  I came home and Paige was playing quietly, and everything looked right as rain.  I should have seen that sweet little face as a warning sign that something had happened.  As it was, I didn't see the writing on the wall, if you will until the next day.

 The sneaky little artist had left her mark in a discreet location, (in the corner behind our big chair) but left her trademark drawing as the red herring removing all doubt as to whom the culprit was.  Seriously, the kid never draws anything else.  This is her self portrait.  Occasionally she gets creative and she'll add in other people, (who all look exactly the same to the untrained eye) or my personal favorite - autobots like Heatwave and Chase - but no drawing is without her infamous stick figure self.

I had a little chuckle to myself before going to her and asking calmly, "Paige, honey I noticed something on the wall behind the chair." She, being no dummy instantly burst into tears, "Was it a DRAWD?!" She asked with all the drama you'd expect from a four year old girl and then some.  At that point I lost all the decorum I had left and had a good laugh.  Notwithstanding the fact that this was absolutely the naughtiest thing she'd done in a while, I didn't have the heart to do anything more than give the obligatory finger wag and 'don't do it again' speech.  I will note here that she absolutely did do it again a few days later, adding to the original art.  She seemed to be going through a phase that week of just not being able to control the naughty impulses to do things she knew she shouldn't.  Lucky for me it was a short phase and she seems to have gotten it out of her system without having to have any serious intervention. ;)

I am also going to shamelessly say I TOLD YOU SO, to the man who has given me endless crap over crayon on the wall.  All in good humor my love!

To give a further example of her adorable art - and some of the hilarious things said at our house - I give you her latest math lesson.  A graph showing all the members of our family separated by gender.  Girls on the top row, boys on the bottom.  In case you're curious, from left to right it's Paige, Clarie, Emma, Mom and then on the bottom, Parker, Noah, Andrew and Dad.  

.After she drew Claire she stuck her tag on the graph and then said, "Oh no!  I forgot to give Claire eyelashes!  I almost made her look like a boy!"  Followed by peals of giggles.  Yes folks, the girl has three brothers and she still thinks eyelashes are what set us apart.

If that doesn't give you a good laugh, Andrew at one point believed that we are all born looking like his little sisters, and that eventually we will all um, grow some stuff, and become boys.  I had to explain this one so. many. times.  Even after having a baby brother I'm still not sure he has it straight. ;)

On a similar topic, Andrew asked me the other day, "Mom, when I was a baby, how did I get in your tummy?"  The gears in my head started turning, but before I let the conversation get away from us, I decided to ask him some questions to figure out what it was he really wanted to know.  I've learned that with little kids these questions are usually not asking what we think they are and that they are satisfied with broad answers on the topic.  Come to find out, he wanted to know more about the umbilical cord!  So we had a lovely little chat about how my body gave him food while he was growing and I took care of him and kept him warm until he was big enough to be born and that after that he didn't need his umbilical cord anymore and the doctor took it off and that's why he has a belly button!  Hoorah!

Seriously, never a dull moment around here.