You Never Come Over Anymore...

It's a frequent complaint of our childless friends.  I'm sure every parent has heard it at some point.  Beyond the usual tired excuse of it being a big hassle to pack kids up and get them out to someone else's house, there is another reason.  A good one.

Destruction.

There's only so much of it that you can curtail.  I don't care how good a parent you are, kids are kids.  Especially when you consider that there are many different types of destruction.  My kids hit them all at the Superbowl party we went to.

Destruction of Peace

• Terrible twos=terrible tantrums.  I was actually considering taking my son home early on in the visit. Five minutes in the door he started crying like someone kicked his favorite Wonder Pet.  He missed nap time though, and I thought that once he slept for a little while, he'd be just fine.  He did okay until he emptied out a 64-count box of crayons onto the floor and we took them away.  He was hitting his head on the floor (carpeted, doesn't have the same effect as it does at home, where our floors are made of laminate material), kicking everyone that tried to touch him and screaming bloody murder the whole time.  He did this in the middle of the game.

Destruction of Person

• One fat lip for a little girl, courtesy of my son's rock head.
• He got as good as he gave though, as an elbow ended up meeting his face at some point.
• One of our friends is about the right height that, when my son comes barreling around a corner, his rock head catches the friend right in the...rocks.

Destruction of Property

• An unknown quantity of Disney Princess accessories disappeared yesterday.  I know my son ate one princess shoe and attempted to also swallow a ring.  I saved it, but it's mangled now.  Beyond those, I don't have a clue until he passes it all.  I'm sure that we'll have some explaining to do if he poops at school tomorrow.
• A personal journal.  Hope they liked my daughter's pictures of Purple Kangaroo.  On every page.  She did it in pencil, so it was easily erased, but she's a heavy-fisted artist, so you can still see the impressions.
• A pool table.  Remember just a sentence ago, when I said that my girl got ahold of a pencil?  Yeah.  Our friend's pool table has light tan felt covering it.  Now it has some lovely artwork covering it as well.  We worked with our friend to clean it as thoroughly as possible, but the cleaners he had there couldn't get it out.  We took our walk of shame out the door the second the game ended.

Next year, we already have plans to stay home.  I'm sure we won't be invited back anyway, so it shouldn't be an issue.

The New Best Friend

For the past 5 years, we've deep fried our Thanksgiving turkey.  Oh, and then again for Christmas.  We will pretty much look for any excuse under the sun to fry a turkey, now that I come to think of it.

Anyway, so all this turkey frying has finally worn out our fryer pot to the extent that we felt it necessary to buy a new one.  Thanksgiving Day being a day for turkey, football and laziness, we knew we didn't want to prep it tomorrow.  Mr. A started assembling it last night and finished it off with a good washing.

The pot is pretty deep, so he just washed it in the bathtub (after a whole lot of girlish sounding whining about how cold it is outside......it was a "bone-chilling" 57 degrees outside) and left it in there for reasons only a man can sort out.

After a little while, I realized I hadn't seen MollyMischiefMachine, so I started calling for her.

Awesomeness:  Where were you?

Molly: I was in the bathroom.

Awesomeness: What were you doing in the bathroom for so long?

Molly: I play with Pot.

Awesomeness: Pot?  Who's Pot?

Molly: Pot is in the bathtub.  He's my new best friend.  We play catch with a ball.

Awesomeness: ..........

She was, indeed, tossing a ball at the pot.  The pot was indeed "catching" it.  It's come to my attention that we should probably make more of an effort to help her find some real friends.  People ones.

In other news, I caught MollyMischiefMaker playing with the house phone just after I started typing this post.  I explained to her that she shouldn't play with the phone because sometimes people call because they need to talk to her daddy or me and that they won't be able to get through if she's playing with the phone. (Okay, so no one actually calls, but it was the principle of the matter.)  Her response:

 But Mama, I need call Pongo.

Pongo.  As in, 101 Dalmations Pongo.  She is obsessed with that dog.  She was very disappointed about not being able to talk to her imaginary dog friend on the phone, so I gave her my old cell phone and told her it was her special "Pongo phone".  Then, in predictable little girl fashion, she proceeded to call all of her friends:

Hi Pongo!  It's me, it's Molly.  You're my best friend.  What's that Pongo?  Yes.  Uh, huh.  You have Patches?  Patches is a puppy.  Okay Pongo, bye-bye!

Hello Santa!  You got reindeers?  Yes?  And a sleigh?  I just talking to Pongo.  He's white with black spots.  Pongo is my best friend.

Hi Grammy and Papa!  I just talking to Pongo and Santa.  I miss you too Grammy.  Uh huh.  I haveta go now. Bye-bye!

Boy, whatta chatterbox.