The Hooligans

As Miriam gets older she starts getting more and more like the older two, hooligans.  Brian and I are starting to wonder if we give them all hooligan genes, or if it is our parenting style that turns them into hooligans.  I think they may be born that way because it starts pretty young.  Anyway this story is about the older two.

Sundays we have church until 1:00 and we don't get home until 1:30 or so.  The kids are usually wiped out from church and aren't interested in lunch and just go to quiet time.  So when they come down they are pretty hungry.  The kids were playing Mario Kart and I put some apples and 1/2 a bag of baby carrots by them on the couch to eat.  Then I go about feeding the animals, nursing the baby, and making dinner.  And I kind of forget about the food on the couch.  As I am finishing up dinner the kids are running laps back and forth.  I think they may of mentioned something about hiding the food.  But Miriam was doing her routine of pulling the cans of food off the shelf so I thought they were talking about that.

After dinner as I am cleaning up, Joshua starts making a treasure map.  He was explaining it to me saying here is an "X" over the couch, and here is an "X"  on the computer.  I was thinking to myself how cute, he really likes pirates.  Then we went into the living room to Skype with my family.  I looked on the couch and there is an empty bag of baby carrots.  I know my kids and I know there is no way they ate all those carrots.  So I ask them where they are.  They just look at me, then Minna says, they are in the couch.  Fortunately they were under the couch and under the computer table, not inside them.  I realized that is what treasure map was for, for finding the carrots. 

Needless to say we had a mandatory pickup before calling my parents.  The kiddos redeemed themselves by not only cleaning up their stuff, but by cleaning up Miriam's mess too.  Miriam let everything stay picked up until 2 minutes until I got her ready for bed.  Then she dumped everything back on the ground. They are all hooligans.