Thing 1 & Thing 2

Remember these guys from The Cat in the Hat? Well, they live at my house!

This house is MUCH bigger than our last house and I am forever “losing” the children–especially the toddlers (aka Thing 1 & Thing 2).  The quiet that I so enjoy is NOT a good thing, but it often takes me a bit to realize WHY things are quiet…it’s because Thing 1 & Thing 2 are somewhere destroying something.

Here is a glimpse of their handiwork just this morning…

They started in the main bathroom. Remember they “cleaned” my bathroom yesterday with Citra-Solv (did I mention this house is TOO big?!)  Well, today, they cleaned the tub with ALL the soap.  They also soaped themselves with their clothes on.

I was nursing the baby when Thing 1 came in and said,

“My shirt is wet.  I all bubbly.”

It did not occur to me to ask WHY she was “ALL BUBBLY,” but shortly thereafter, my husband, who had been reading on the couch, walked into the bathroom and all I heard was, “Oh No!”  Since I was still nursing (thank you, Lord!), he got the job of cleaning them up.

About an hour later, while we are all tidying up the house, they disappeared again.  Once again, it is my husband who finds them in the craft room.  They had unloaded ALL my snaps.  Now, this was no small task.  The 500 snaps were all neatly packaged by color and by size.  Thing 1 & Thing 2 had to ever-so-carefully dump them all on the floor and then systematically mix them all up, so they became a beautiful jumble of color and size.  I’m sure it must have taken them all of 30 seconds.

Thing 1, ever ready with a comment on her behavior, says,

“I make a mess.”

REALLY?!  DH wouldn’t even attempt to tackle this one, and called for me.  I stood there for a bit seething pondering before slowly backing up and shutting the door–not today.

As I was backing out of the room, I noticed a smell I have smelled before…it is the smell of stain remover.
I turn to look in the laundry room and there they are, Thing 1 spraying the laundry room floor with stain spray while Thing 2 looks on in admiration.  I shuffle them out of the laundry room in a flurry of reprimands and begin the frantic search for a baby gate–anything to keep these terrific toddlers out of that area of the basement!

I find the baby gate in the garage and put it up, only to come upstairs and find Thing 1 has stolen a banana and has given part of it to her brother.  I take away the bananas from Adam and Eve, I mean Thing 1 & Thing 2, and discipline them.  Thing 1, being the instigator of this crime spree, is put in a chair under the watchful eye of her older brother until I can get a few things done and breathe.

I know there are naysayers out there who will say I am just getting what I deserve for having such a large family so close in age, but lest you think these children are a burden to me, let me ask you this…

Aren’t you terribly bored without a Thing 1 & Thing 2 at YOUR house???