Naughty

Last week, Ian cooked up a new game called "Santa's Sleigh" or "mud slide," which involves sliding down our wooden staircase while sitting on the comforter from the bed. Jonah was alternatively shocked and delighted at Ian's new game. Both took many runs down the stairs before this game was banned forever.

With Ian's delayed speech, he's had plenty of tantrums and screaming fits over the past couple of years. There's been lots of frustration for the poor boy. But creative naughtiness is new. Like Jonah, I'm alternatively shocked and delighted with the new Ian. "Santa's Sleigh" has been the first of several new tricks.

A few days after the comforter trick, he unscrewed the cap to my contact case, which I had sensibly left on the bathroom counter, and filled the case with toothpaste. Yes, my contacts were in the case.

The next morning, I was lying in bed trying to soak up an extra minute of sleep. In the next room, I heard someone yell "cannonball" and then I heard a thump. Someone yelled "cannonball" again and then thump. "Bellyflop!" thump.

"What the hell is going on?" I shouted and ran out of bed.

The boys had ripped all the sheets off their beds. The sheets were piled up with their pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals in front of their bunk bed. Then they climbed to the second bunk and dove into the pile below.

This is only going to get worse.

OK, fess up. What trouble did you get into as a kid?

Comments

[Lisa V]

I locked my sister in a clothes hamper and sent it down the stairs. She managed to escape before she hit the bottom.

Damn it.

[wolfa]

We all did the slide down the stairs (to a hardwood floor) on cushions things. It was never banned in any household I knew. (All of them had a good 10 feet of space at the front of the stairs, though.) The jumping thing sounds like fun, too, though dangerous if you accidentally land headfirst.

I used to play with my sister then put her away in the closet in the basement, and just keep playing elsewhere. I don't think I ever got in trouble for this, though.

[kip]

I took my rubber lined mattress and used it like a sled...in college.

Needless to say I still get into trouble.

[meg]

Mattress-sledding is a big part of the departmental retreat for our majors, which is held at a big cabin in the mountains. I've never been awake for it -- they only do it after we facultoids have turned in -- but the evidence is there when we get up in the morning. And the kids occasionally get bruises, which they then complain about vociferously (blaming on other kids, thank heavens, not on the system).