SSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Sssssshhhh!” {scrape, scrape, scape}

{stage whisper} “Ok, ssssssh! Get this! Ssssh! OK! Quiet! Sssh! Don’t laugh! Sssssh! OK”

{thump} pause {rustle, rustle, rustle}

{thump, thump, scurry scurry} {scrape rustle scrape} “SH!”

The parents reading this are already laughing and saying something like, “Hope she got in there pronto, ‘cause those kids are up to something!”

For the rest of you, who are blithely unaware of what these sounds may mean…it means that two little girls are in Time Out until 2030. Possibly 2031, if they don’t stop screaming and crying about it.

So I’m in the office trying (again) to set up the online bill payments for my new checking account (see, this is why I’ve stayed with the same bank for years and years, because I understand their online banking and already have all my payees set up in it).

Upon hearing the above noises emanating from the kitchen, I sprang over the gate to see what they were up to in there. I found Boo Bug and Danger Mouse huddled under the kitchen table, a birthday grab bag I had completely forgotten about having been swiped out of a kitchen cupboard and the contents dumped out on the floor. Danger Mouse was shoving gum into her mouth as fast as her little hands could manage, because she knew it was only a matter of moments before I descended in wrath and judgment upon them.

I made her spit it out. And I took it all away, marched it into the laundry room, and chucked it into the trash, put them on the couch, told them how disappointed I am and that if they got off that couch it would be Real Trouble, Missy!

Children have the most amazing ability to not understand that I can hear them, even if I’m not in the room. They’re always shocked and amazed when I hear things like, oh, say, a chair being dragged over to the cupboards. Or the sound of a cupboard being opened. The sound of a bag of treats being torn open, the clatter of the sweets on the floor, the constant ‘sh! sh! sh!’ of the older child to the younger as they shove chairs aside to get under the kitchen table, a spot they apparently believe has the ancient church concept of Sanctuary attached to it, because invariably this is where they go when being nefarious.

They also can’t fathom how I could hear them from all the way downstairs when they were playing with the water upstairs (we’ve got noisy pipes) or how I knew they were getting into my bedroom (baby monitors – they’re not just for nap time, anymore) or how I knew just by looking at them that they’d gotten into something they weren’t supposed to get into (well, when you jump and shriek then put your hands quickly behind yourself, shake your head and blurt out, “NOTHING!” before I can even ask what you’ve got there…that’s kind of a dead giveaway).

Someday, they’ll figure this all out.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy the ease with which I can bust them when they sin and the fact that if they decide they’re going to fight me about it, I can pick them up bodily and toss them onto the couch like a sack of potatoes.

Oh yeah. WHO da mommy?!