Pee-Pee pants and naked crayons in the club house

Sometimes, parenthood is so exhausting that I forget it's often humorous, in a face-palm-slap sort of way.

Case in point: Reni, this Monday, at an indoor children's play area/discovery zone which boasts fully padded walls and a kazillion fun kid-themed things (including a munchkin-sized pizza and ice-cream parlor, veterinary clinic, apple farm with truck and horses, grocery store with working cash register, construction zone, and art project area of Anika's dreams).

Sounds like plenty to keep a kid entertained, yes?

Well, he was there one moment mixing pizza toppings in the animal crates, and the next, he had disappeared. It took us a panic-inducing, crazy-mom-looking-under pillows, agonizing five minutes to locate him. He had locked himself in a stall in the women's bathroom, removed his pants, diaper, and Spider Man slippers (don't ask; it's his choice of footwear these days and, honestly, who doesn't want to wear slippers everywhere? Thought I'd give the guy the joy while he can still pull it off) and proceeded to pee all over his pants, diaper, and bathroom floor. Two full rolls of toilet paper were strewn throughout the stall and jammed into the toilet. The slippers were mysteriously missing. He insisted he had flushed them down the toilet, and I was preparing myself for the humiliating confession to the front-desk staff ('Hey there, just in case you have clogged toilets, my son's super hero slippers are *probably* to blame, totally understand if there's a charge or something and if you maybe don't want us here anymore?') when another mom came bounding into the bathroom, slippers held high, triumphant smile on her face: "We found them!"

I wanted to slap him and hug him all at once. He was safe. We had averted a plumbing disaster. But he was a little bugger. Is he getting ready for potty training, or is he just being a little shit because he can? Jury's still out. He has since done this twice (and it's only Thursday, folks), once at our house and this afternoon at my friend Angela's house. I don't mind the pee that ends up everywhere so much as the hiding, not answering my increasingly frantic calls to find him, and attempts to flush objects that are not body fluids down the porcelain throne. Yesterday he had an entire box of Kleenex in there, box and all.

Anika, reveling in the fact that Reni's getting in trouble, has been a little angel for most of lately (well, pretty much anything that she needs to do -- e.g. eat healthy foods, get dressed in appropriate clothing, brush her hair and teeth, take a bath -- is a power struggle lately, but that's to be expected from a pistol-strong four-year-old). Her preschool teachers surprised the class with a home made puppet theatre in the classroom on Tuesday, and she was so excited about it that she wanted to make her own once we got home. An old box, some old sheets, a glue gun and scissors and lots of construction paper and markers, and viola - we had a puppet theatre. Which was quickly recommissioned into a play house. She spent three hours in there that afternoon. No joke. Having tea parties, arranging the 'furniture,' coloring….she even had her scooter in there (which, btw, she would sleep with if I would let her. Best. Xmas. Gift. Ever. Aunt. Becca.) Then I noticed a colorful paper trail, rather Hansel and Gretel-esque, leading from the kitchen table to her club house. She had been peeling all of the papers off of her crayons and tossing them out the back 'door' of her club house. "Because it's fun, mama!"