It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!

Not all of my children go to their Dad's house every other weekend. Two of them stay home with me. But when their siblings are gone and there is no one to play with but boring old me they get antsy and start harassing each other. It is a known fact that when the regular routine becomes off balance children who normally behave, start acting out. These innocent looking children of mine.....



decide to drive each other, and in turn, drive me crazy. It usually starts out with the oldest most mature, namely Bella taking a quick cheap shot at Bombo. Look closely she is quick. What you don't see in this picture is the aftermath. Bella's paw strikes Bombo soundly on the nose, numerous times. And before her calculated assault he was just minding his own business trying to take a nap.

Bombo's response is one of shock initially. He tries to gain composure and moves over to the other side of the bed to finish his nap. Bella strikes again by biting repeatedly at Bombo's whisker's. This time Bombo lets out a half hearted(in human speak)very whiny protest "STOP!" as you can see in this next picture.
He then turns his head to me as to say, "are you going to do anything about her behavior!"




Bombo the much younger sibling finally snapped and decided to take matters into his own hands pinning his older but much smaller sister to the bed with only his mouth as Bella protests loudly. This reminds me of a time when I realized that I could no longer harass my younger brother because he could take me down faster than a speeding bullet, flat on my back. Live and learn Bella, live and learn. Like they say it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.



After this fiasco Bombo and Bella were sent into time out to think about what they had done and to come up with five ways they could have handled this situation differently. I never received answers from either of them they spent most of their time sulking, as noted in the pictures below.






While in time out I did catch Bombo making faces at Bella, as shown below, so I added an extra five minutes to his confinement. I'll have to talk to him about that later.





For those of you who may think it must be enjoyable for me to have no disciplining, no fighting, no noise, every other weekend. Just remember my other two children. As angelic as they may look....







don't be fooled because the cycle of sibling abuse is about to start again; right in the middle of a nap. It's a rough life, I tell ya!








No animals were harmed (seriously) during this post.

One more reason I love this guy

Adam recently had a retainer put on his top teeth preparing him for braces. (I am taking donations for my ever increasing orthodontists bills:) While having the retainer fitted the dentist decided to pull one of his last remaining front baby teeth out so the retainer would work more effectively. On the way home from this very traumatic experience for Adam he hinted that maybe the tooth fairy should give him double the money, at least FIVE DOLLARS for how brave he had been . My sharpened, very perceptive Mothering Decoding Messages Skill (or MCDS) heard this. "Mom, I have been saving up my money for a new mp3 player and if you pay me at least FIVE DOLLARS I will have reached my goal and be able to jam out on my new mp3 player." I reminded him of the fact that he hasn't believed in the tooth fairy for years but that I think he did a very good job at not biting the dentist this time. I told him I would think about it and then dropped him off at school to finish the day and show off his new mouthful of hardware. Adam came in the house after school very upset and trying not to cry. I asked him if he was OK and he explained to me through his tears that he had left his newly pulled tooth on his lunch tray because he wanted to show it to the lunch lady (apparently him and the lunch lady are pretty tight?). Because he was so hungry he set it on his tray and in his haste to get out to recess to "protect the girls from bullies" he let the poor lonely tooth be dumped into the abyss of unwanted potatoes, gravy and frozen carrots. And because of the good mother that I am I tried my best to console him then sent him outside to play because maybe that would cheer him up. I just barely reached my room when I couldn't control my gut instinct to laugh, no actually it was more like a guffaw. It was the funniest story I had heard all day! (I know, not to empathetic.) Fast forward to bed time. Adam, my very sensitive and emotional fifth grader comes to me again with tears in his eyes wondering what he should do about the tooth fairy dilemma. He had no proof "except for a big hole in his head" and he doesn't think that will be enough to get his FIVE DOLLARS. I came up with an ingenious plan. I told him that the tooth fairy may consider giving him the money if he could write up a short proposal about what happened and why he thinks he should get the money. Maybe even a signed and notarized affidavit from the lunch lady and his best friend Aaron saying they did indeed see the tooth. He seemed less than excited because writing is not his strongest subject math is. With that we all went to bed. Morning time rolls around much to soon in our house and Ashalee has to be out the door by seven to make it to Tuachan. As I am sleeping I here a big bang coming from the stairs and Ashalee moaning. She slowly creeps into my room to tell me she was coming up the stairs and slipped on a piece of paper. She handed it to me and this is what I read.


For those of you that are having a hard time reading it this is what it said exactly the way he wrote it.

Dear Tooth Fairy,
I hope you get this note, because some thing happend to my tooth. OK I'll tell you the story, I wanted to show the lunch lady my tooth so I forgot to tak it off my lunch tray (when I was done) so it kinda ended up in the trash.
Your guy,
Adam Johnson

P.S. Can I have some mony with that?

That wasn't exactly what the tooth fairy was looking for but she couldn't resist. He clenched it when I read "your guy". I wrapped up three dollars worth of quarters(from my Vegas days:) in the note and wrote on it "thanks for clearing that up for me. The books are balanced again. Love, the tooth fairy" Then I put it in his retainer container. Things are now back to normal the drama has subsided for now. But I have to get one thing off my chest. Adam totally could have received his five dollars but apparently we really need to work on spelling and grammar this summer. Also, I had to knock one dollar off without the signed notarized affidavits, they were essential components to his case. He did earn three dollars for shear cuteness. One more reason I love my guy.