Chipmunk Cheeks

So yesterday I was sitting on the sofa entering my consignment sale items into the computer and I noticed Lois had taken her favorite yellow drum stick and crawled off toward the dog bowls. She can be a bit of a menace with her drumsticks. Anything within a 12 inch perimeter is liable to get a beat down - including pets, glass doors, or even her brother's head. I watched her crawl and said in my best sing-song voice, "Lo-is. Where are you go-ing?"

She knows that tone - she knows she's about to do something she's not supposed to - and in response, the crawling gets faster and she starts giggling like a school girl. I put down the laptop and ran over to find her stirring the water in the dog bowl with her drumstick. So now I'm in a quandary. I don't want Lois to think it's OK to play in the dog bowls. But we've been trying to get her to "stir" for months. (Another homework assignment from Miss Judy.) So here she is stirring, and having a great time watching the water splash all over the floor, and I'm supposed to stop her? I suppose if I were a good, resourceful, energetic parent, I would have filled a bowl with water and let her stir the water with her drumstick to her heart's content - making sure she understood this wasn't something we did in the dirty dog bowls. But frankly, I'm none of those things. So what did I do?


I took pictures.



And I sat back down and let her continue to play in the water.


I'm not proud of it, but there is it. She was having such a good time I didn't have the heart to make her stop.


I paid for it all 10 minutes later. I noticed Miss Gigglypants had gone quiet - never a good sign. As I looked behind the sofa, she gave me a huge grin just as she stuffed another piece of Kibbles and Bits into her mouth. She looked like a chipmunk. Both cheeks were stuffed and there was a plethora of drool on the front of her shirt in varying shades of brown.

She was none too pleased with the process I undertook to dig it all out of her mouth, nor the volume of juice I insisted she drink afterwards to wash the grit out of her mouth.


No pictures of the kibble incident - I was in too much of a rush to empty those cheeks. And besides - perhaps photographing inappropriate behavior isn't the best parenting method.