Crafty Calculating

Yesterday I stepped into the kitchen to grab something, during which (short) time Mary dragged over the child-sized chair, then ran to the bathroom to procure the stool, which she stacked on top. I found her standing on top of this precarious stack and calculating that she needed a third item in order to be high enough to reach the Advent candles on the fireplace mantle.

The kids do keep me on my toes, and there are only two of them! At one point yesterday I was laughing (in lieu of crying) because first I discovered that Mary had dragged a stool to the bar area, climbed up onto the bar, opened the high cupboard, and taken out many of my (alphabetized) DVDs, removed the DVDs from their cases, and knocked my 100 ready-to-mail Christmas cards onto the ground. I got that straightened up, then I was called by John into the bathroom for a big clean up (whose details I'll spare my readers). Then when I emerged with some dirty rags to take to the laundry room, I found Mary standing on the kitchen counter, having opened up the coffee maker and was spreading around coffee beans (something I caught her doing three or four times yesterday). That was just one stretch of about five minutes in the home, with plenty of other childish mischief done throughout the day. I have only so many eyes, ears, and hands to juggle chores plus two kids going in different directions.