The Law of the Pack

My children have started moving in packs. Well, one pack, seeing as there are only two of them. But two is enough. More than enough. Their pack mentality is "Search and Destroy." They roam the house searching out freshly cleaned spaces, and preying upon the unprotected remnants of my sanity. Then they wait oh-so-patiently for that unsuspecting moment when their usual innocence has rendered me completely unsuspicious, and then...... they POUNCE!

Today while I was cleaning up lunch, they wandered into their room to play with their toys. Innocent enough right? Wrong. They emptied every basket, drawer, and shelf in their room into one mass pile in the middle of the room. When I discovered them, they scattered (of course) and re-grouped in the bathroom. While I was still reeling from the bedroom destruction, they grabbed the toilet brush and it's little recepticle, and used both to shower the bathroom in toilet water. I came running when I heard the splashing and uncontrollable giggles, and stood sputtering in the doorway, stunned and speechless. With a tremendous amount of self-control I removed the tools of destruction, stripped Gavin down to his skin and stuck him in the shower. Aliyah was suddently nowhere to be found, and when I finally located her, she was 10 feet up, in the top shelf of her bedroom closet (how did she even get up there??!!).

After prying her down and sticking her into the shower with her brother, I stepped out to get towels to throw over the toilet-water mess (we have a standing shower w/no tub so no drowning dangers) and discovered that somewhere amidst this chaos, Aliyah had time to sneak out to the kitchen and dump the remaining lunch into the carpet. Gavin must have been acting as the decoy. Figures. Defeated, I made my way back towards the bathroom where I was absolutely unsurprised to see water running into the hall carpet. They had worked together to create a masterpiece of hydro-engineering using water toys that made all the shower water run out onto the bathroom floor. Genius.

Time elapsed since onset of destruction? 10 minutes! In as many minutes as I have fingers, they had managed a more efficient demolition job than any orange-vested crew I've ever seen. Sigh. I called Troy and told him I was hiring a sitter to take over for the rest of the day.....week.......month(?) and I would be back when the house was clean and I had relocated my fragmented sanity. He reminded me that the economy hardly permitted such luxurious measures, and suggested I take some time out for group-therapy (blogging). So, thanks for the session ya'll, now I'm off to get ahold of my day, or some tranquilizer darts. Whichever I find first.