I should have known better. I should have been able to see the signs. Events of the past should really have warned me about such an instance... but I did not listen to my maternal instincts. I simply enjoyed the silence.
Silence. That should have been my first clue. This morning when I was doing school with Hope and Aaron and Mary was in a nap, there was a suspicious silence coming from the seat in which Emma usually is in. She is usually in her seat asking questions like "Momma? What is 7, 8, 9, 10?" or "Momma? Can I have a snack? Can I have a drink? Can I have a million dollars?"
No, this morning Emma decided to play in the playroom with her doll house. This was a welcomed break for me as Hope, Aaron and I were elbow deep in math and it was nice to be able to actually explain a problem without having to stop 10 times in order to wipe a 4 year old butt, or explain that Penguin does in fact start with a "P" and not an "R."
This is where I should have said "Hold on a cotton pickin' minute! Why is the 4 year old quiet?"
When Hope was 4 she was quiet once. When I went to check on her she had pulled half of a wall of newly hung wallpaper off of her bedroom wall. We were in the process of selling our house and she had single handedly caused my brain to explode at the sight of little pieces of wallpaper all over her carpet and a bare wall were once stood little bears having tea.
When Aaron was 4 he was quiet once. When I went to check on him he had somehow managed to get the maple syrup out of the pantry and make a race track all over the white carpet in our living room. That is the day that I learned that maple syrup cannot come out of white carpet... no matter how much you pay the professional carpet cleaning service. We were in the process of moving and were living on base when this happened. This was the day that Aaron became a person of interest with the military police. I ended up on that list as well.
When it finally dawned on me that I should check on Emma, who was being so sinisterly silent, it was too late. I opened the door to the playroom to find a hole in the wall. It was as if she were in Alcatraz and she was slowly making a hole in her cell for escape. Emma had taken her little scissors-the kind that are not supposed to be harmful-and managed to burrow through the wall between the playroom and the bathroom. It is a little peep-hole. If you look though you can see the person who is sitting on the toilet.
As is family tradition, this event happened when we are in the process of selling our home. Now we have a hole in the playroom. I am trying to figure out a way that I can put a positive spin on this for our house brochure. Something like "Newly installed peep-hole in the playroom so that you can always keep an eye on your children in the bathroom. Always know if your kids have actually brushed their teeth or not!"
Lord help me...
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