The destroyers at work

Ro and Ree have always been able to harness their twin powers for incredible acts of cunning and destruction. Yes they are cute – so cute – but don’t be fooled by these two beautiful smiles.

Oh Wednesday, they played outside for about half an hour while I cleaned up the kitchen, unloaded the loathsome dishwasher, reloaded it, and restarted it, and folded some laundry. Typical. I *thought* they were only battling to the death with their foam swords (as usual).

Then the girls came inside and we fooled around with some homemade PlayDoh. Whatever, still nothing out of the ordinary. I gave them a snack and strolled into the office to check my email. I think they were out of my sight for about seven or eight minutes. And during that time they didn’t make any unusual noises. (Come to think of it, they didn’t make any noise at all, which should have tipped me off. Damn Spidey sense is off!)

When I came back to the kitchen I couldn’t even believe my eyes. The delinquents had gone into the pantry, found a brand-new 5-pound sack of flour, opened it pretending to make “flour soup,” and somehow spread the entire contents of the sack all over themselves, the counters, the floors, everything within a 20-foot radius. !!! Ree’s whole head was completely white, and every counter and floorboard in the kitchen (and actually even in the dining room and living room) was gritty and dusty.

I’m not even sure what I said right then. I think I was in complete shock at the utter vastness of the mess. I didn’t teach the girls any new swear words, which must be a victory of some sort. I gritted out my extreme displeasure and directed them to start cleaning immediately. One of them grabbed the broom, one of them grabbed the swivel sweeper, and I grabbed the big vacuum cleaner. It was unbelievable. I’m still hot thinking about it (and still finding flour in every nook and cranny). We worked on it for about 20 minutes, then I filled up a bucket with water and handed them two mops. They mopped the entire downstairs. Which would have been great, except that they thought it was Too Much Fun and exactly what princesses do. Rrrrrrrr. Then I sent them to time-out while I took the rugs outside to see if I could shake off the flour.

That’s when I saw the big pile of flagstones on their wooden picnic table and started yelling. They came running out of time-out and explained that the rocks had come out of the sidewalk. Yes, unbelievably, they had chipped the huge flagstones out of the walkway that runs around our yard. The same walkway that 85 people are going to walk on at the graduation in a little over a week. The same walkway that now has huge gaping holes!!!!! I was SO IRRITATED – we really don’t need to talk about what I said. Suffice it to say that after ranting and getting some disjointed story about wanting to make the rocks prettier, I sent them back to time out (mostly for their protection), and called TubaDad, who was on him way home. I stuttered, asked “why?!!!!” about a hundred times, ranted some more, poured some wine, then hung up and waited for him to arrive. He also was aghast at the destruction. After a lot of questioning, deliberation, talk about making good choices, and more wine, we handed down the sentencing, which was met with huge gasps and then quiet acceptance.

And that is the most destructive day the twinados have ever had or (knock wood) will ever have.

So... any "I cannot believe they did that!" stories of your own to share? Something that will make me laugh, or feel better, preferrably both?

PS: Sorry, no pictures of the destruction, didn’t even think of it. You know it’s really bad if this blogging mama doesn’t even grab a camera... I’ll start working on the party post next. I spent all afternoon driving around looking for a fleet of those cheap little plastic stackable kid chairs. Do they not exist anymore? Anyone seen them anywhere in stores or online?