My Child is a Diabolical Genius

For those who aren't sure (and let's be honest, sometimes I'm not even sure), the Captain has been home for a couple of weeks on leave. Next week he goes back to working his normal 9-to-5 (ish) day until the crazy exercises start in April.

While he's been home, he's been enjoying walking up our rather long driveway in the afternoons to meet Firstborn when he gets home on the schoolbus. I enjoy it too, because it's darned cold out there.

Yesterday, he was getting ready for the driveway trek when the phone rang. It was the school resource teacher. At first, I thought Firstborn had done something uncharacteristically naughty, like throwing snowballs perhaps, on the playground. But it turned out his uncharacteristic naughtiness had surfaced in a slightly more sophisticated manner. Firstborn had concocted himself a cunning plan.

While all the other kindergarteners were lining up to either get on the bus or meet their parents at the door, Firstborn slipped into the wrong line. When the substitute teacher who was in for the day asked him why he was in the wrong line, he informed her, apparently quite convincingly, that his mum was coming to pick him up today. Had his regular teacher been there, she'd have marched him to the bus, following the standing rule that if I haven't written a note, he gets on the bus as usual. My crafty little spawn obviously knew this was his chance to score himself an unscheduled playdate in town.

The mother of Firstborn's best friend lives in town and picks up her son every day. When she saw what was transpiring, she was immediately suspicious. She's never seen me pick Firstborn up before. So, she stuck around to make sure he wasn't stranded. And when it became clear that I was not, indeed, coming to collect my child, she had the school call me to say she was taking him home with her.

Though we appreciate out-of-the-box thinking, we knew we couldn't reward Firstborn with a playdate, so the Captain got in the car and headed straight over to march our sneaky little monkey home. He got there just as Firstborn was enjoying a donut and a card game. As you can probably imagine, Firstborn was not pleased to be dragged out of there crying.

Then, of course, we had to dole out some sort of discipline. Honestly, I can see why people let their kids go wild. Taking away Firstborn's computer time for the night meant an evening of crying and whining that would test the mettle of the world's strictest disciplinarians. But we stuck to our guns, and today Firstborn promises never to pull such a stunt again.

The stuff no one tells you before you have kids...

And lastly, before I forget, I am one week into the bathroom renovation and finally able to bathe! Yay! There's still a heck of a lot more to be done, but life sure looks different when you don't smell like you've been sleeping in a dumpster.