Stealth Jew

He's cute when he's sleeping.

Right before Shabbas this week, I did the ridiculous. I went to sit down with the baby. My husband had to run out and do a work errand. Everything was ready. All that was necessary was for Genome to not destroy anything for a 25 minute period.

We explained this clearly to Genome.

Some ten minutes later I heard a crash, and Munchkin's dulcet tones: "you weren't suppossa do that!!"

Genome had found and open a package of miniature Israeli croutons. If you don't know these, they're about a half cm square, hard as rock, and neon yellow. They are said to be some sort of condiment. I have my doubts. My husband likes them. My son thought that my house had too few of them.

Immediately the two older children began crushing the croutons into the floor, the carpet, the couch, and so on. Genome was also eating the occasional crouton off of the floor.

So what if it's twenty minutes to Shabbas? I maintain few standards, but one is that crunching beneath my feet should not be an indoor phenomenon.

As I vacuumed, I had a problem. Munchkin wanted to help. So she ran in front of the vacuum. Genome did not want to help. So he took pieces of our vacuum (it's one of those space age transformer models in neon green and electric blue) to use as weapons.

Then Munchkin fed one of my slings into the vacuum. I smelled smoke.

Then everyone got sent to his or her room with strict instructions that mummy _bites_.

Missives from my increasingly strange oldest child:

"I was having fun at shul, but then I got tired, and so I ate my shirt." (She had indeed been chewing at her shirt. I don't know if she digested any of it.)

In response to the question, "Why did you do that?"
"Because . . . because . . . because I don't know why because!"