It escalates so quickly...

I let the boys watch a couple Chaotic shows on youtube.com this morning. Afterward though, I felt guilty. So we had lunch, and I gave the boys directions that they could play with anything that doesn't have to be turned on or plugged in. The Scientist being a gaming convert complained because everything else is sooo boring. I persevered though and stuck to my directions. Monkey went into the bedroom and found a box (quite easily might I add since I cleaned and organized their bedroom and toys) of small action figures. The box contained knights, bowmen, Gormiti, Power Rangers, Megaman, and Transformer guys. Monkey then made a battle area where he clipped two dishtowels together and stuffed the ends into the chair and couch cushions so they spanned a small area over the fighters. The Scientist made a base up high on the windowsill. They played nicely for maybe 15 minutes, while I walked around the house picking up and tidying, before I heard The Scientist either blocking or creating force fields for every single move the Monkey made. Remember how I said The Scientist wasn't happy about being diverted from the tv and computer?

They stayed together in the living room for a little bit longer, but then The Scientist came to me to say that he was "so bored". I stayed with the conversation trying to help him find something else that he could do. I picked up books. I showed him other toys. I pulled out LEGOS. His response was that that was all BORING. Monkey then picked up on the tension between The Scientist and I, and began trying to find as many things to "do" that would entertain The Scientist and aggravate me at the same time. Because really if it was aggravating me it was entertaining The Scientist. They ganged up on me, but they were playing together. So I let it go. They were in their room. They were playing together. They were sticking to my original instructions. I went into the bathroom to take the nail polish off of my toe nails.

The boys were both giggling. Monkey ran past me into the living room. Then past me into my bedroom. Then past me again into their bedroom. That's when out of the corner of my eye, I see that there are white flakes creating a trail everywhere Monkey ran. Those flakes I realize are instant mashed potatoes (Don't judge me. They are quick and the boys in my house don't notice the difference, or care for that matter, if our mashed potatoes come from a box.) Apparently, the entertaining themselves had entered a new level and that level was a mess through the house. This called for a plan of action.

Step one: Separate the children. Step two: Vacuum up the mashed potato flakes before they somehow get wet. Step three: Explain to Monkey why having food ground into the floor of an old house where bugs, rodents, and goodness knows what else get in all the time is NOT a good idea. Monkey resisted initially because he "likes bugs", but then I got to the beetles and the rodents and he wasn't as blase about feeding them.

Step one was where I separated the children. I sent Monkey to his bed and The Scientist to the couch. Then while cleaning up and calming down, made them stay there for thirty minutes of quiet time. Monkey was not going to comply to this easily. He yelled at me from his bed about why he doesn't care if he feeds the bugs. But then, while on his rant he heard imagined a beetle in his room and got scared. I looked in to see if there was indeed a beetle, which there wasn't, and went about my business of painting my nails during that little bit of quiet time. Within five minutes, Monkey was quiet, which I thought maybe he'd escaped through the curtain and over the piano into the living room, but I didn't hear any giggling. He had not escaped. He did fall asleep though. I was able to finish painting my nails, let them dry for a while, and now I'm writing this...in the quiet...but man that got out of control so fast.