{"id":1437,"date":"2010-10-15T10:26:35","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T17:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1437"},"modified":"2010-10-20T03:36:08","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T10:36:08","slug":"weapons-of-mass-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1437","title":{"rendered":"Weapons of Mass Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was too quiet.\u00a0 Way too quiet for 4 kids that were home from school early and went upstairs over an hour ago.\u00a0 Does anyone else find it odd that the term for a half day of public school is called an “early release” day?\u00a0 Isn’t “early release” the same term the Department of Corrections uses for criminals who get out of prison early due to good behavior?\u00a0 Personally, I find it amusing and alarming all at the same time.<\/p>\n

Speaking of alarming, 4 kids playing quietly for a long period of time usually means:<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 They are in my room, surreptitiously checking the bedside table drawers.\u00a0 Which might entail having to answer questions for which I do not have any prepared responses.<\/p>\n

B:\u00a0 They have dug out their hidden stashes of birthday, pinata, and holiday candy, thereby ruining any later attempt at getting them to eat the cabbage rolls planned for dinner.<\/p>\n

C:\u00a0 They have found the old dog asleep on her bed and are dressing her up to look like a cowboy warrior princess.<\/p>\n

D:\u00a0 One or all of them have applied stickers\/paint\/markers to the walls and they are now trying to devise a removal plan that does not involve Mommy being in a bad mood for the rest of the afternoon.<\/p>\n

But when I went upstairs, things were worse than I imagined.\u00a0 The den was empty, except for the old dog who was resting comfortably and not wearing any accessories.\u00a0 The bedside tables in my bedroom did not appear to have been tampered with—there were no fingerprint in the dust.\u00a0 (Which I purposefully leave there for security reasons.\u00a0 I am not too lazy to dust upstairs where no one except for me can see it.\u00a0 Really.)\u00a0 However, when I\u00a0 wandered into Middle and Little’s room, I stopped in my tracks, aghast.\u00a0 This is what I saw on Little’s bed:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t know what should bother me the most:<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 The fact that we have obviously spent an inordinate amount of money to provide our children with a Nerf arsenal.<\/p>\n

B:\u00a0 The idea that two 5 and 7 year old boys recognize the weapon capability of miniature souvenir baseball bats.\u00a0 And the irony that those bats were given away free at the local baseball team’s game celebrating Public Safety Night.<\/p>\n

C:\u00a0 The marshmallow shooter (small camouflage-colored pieces of PVC pipe) has been dismantled for easier carrying and concealment into, I’m assuming, places where marshmallow shooters are unauthorized.<\/p>\n

D:\u00a0 Even the Frisbee and the detachable leg of the LEGO table have been converted from innocent playthings into armaments.\u00a0 Which, of course, debunks the ridiculous theory that if you don’t provide children with play weapons they will not engage in warfare.\u00a0 Please.\u00a0 They will poke each in the eye with dandelion stems and bomb each other with acorns, even on a good day.<\/p>\n

E:\u00a0 All of the above.<\/p>\n

If you’re not thinking E is the right answer, then thank goodness there are worse parents than me in the world.\u00a0 Because when I finally discovered all the children in Big and Pretty’s room, they were gathering all the pillows, blankets, and sleeping bags out of the linen closet.\u00a0 They claimed they were helping each other make forts so that they could then attack each other. They promised to put everything back where they got it when they were done.\u00a0 (Which means I will spend 30 minutes before bedtime rolling up and tying sleeping bags before stashing them back on the top shelf of the closet.)<\/p>\n

At first, I thought it was odd that they would cooperate in the building of forts and then wage vicious combat against one another.\u00a0 But then I considered the Geneva and Hague Conventions.\u00a0 Hey, if adults can cooperate long enough to write down the necessary rules and regulations of killing one another, then I suppose there is nothing weird about children constructing their forts together before a battle. \u00a0 Although it doesn’t bode well for a future in the Peace Corps for any of them.<\/p>\n

After I determined they were sharing the construction materials equally, I went back downstairs and had a cup of coffee.\u00a0 I even took advantage of the (temporary) peace and quiet to call a friend and chat on the phone.\u00a0 Which may make me a terrible mother.\u00a0 But I figured I should get some down time while I could.\u00a0 Just in case I had to take someone to the Urgent Care.\u00a0 Which stays pretty busy on early release days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was too quiet.\u00a0 Way too quiet for 4 kids that were home from school early and went upstairs over an hour ago.\u00a0 Does anyone else find it odd that the term for a half day of public school is called an “early release” day?\u00a0 Isn’t “early release” the same term the Department of Corrections […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-so-you-think-your-kids-are-bad","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1532,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}