The joy of twins just never ceases. After getting all the kids off to school I thought I'd be a nice Mama and do Carmen's chore for her...dishes. She loves doing them so much there were pans from dinner 3 nights ago still in the sink. I normally will make her stay in the kitchen till they're done thus ensuring that she will not be able to survive without a dishwasher as an adult because she loathes the chore as much as her mother...what can I say? I'm a great mom.

The boys were happily playing in the front room. They've finally hit the stage of potty training where they want to do everything themselves so when they both came in and said they needed to go potty, I happily just said, "Well, go. Do you need help?" With a squealed, "NOOOOO!!!" They ran to the bathroom. They actually went to the bathroom by themselves, then asked for help turning on the water so they could wash their hands. Frequently I steal ten precious minutes of freedom by allowing them to "wash" their hands by themselves. They play in the water, soaking the bathroom in the process, but an easy cleanup for something that engenders in them a love for washing their hands is priceless in my opinion. Plus I was fifteen minutes from finishing the dishes! All for the greater good, right?

Wrong. As I put the last pan into the sink and prepared to scrub the dried on goo off, two cheshire cat grins walked into the kitchen. "We cleaned the stairs for you, Mama," they proudly proclaimed. "Really? That's wonderful! Thank you boys!" I said as I tried to remember how many toys had been on the stairs to gadge my enthusiasm accordingly. "Come see! Come see!" they chanted as they pulled me to the stairs...that were laden with several gallons of water from the bathroom sink. They cleaned the stairs with my oxiclean bucket. Luckily it was empty before they started filling it with water to dump on the carpeted stairs. Also lucky for me, my next task of the day was to wash towels.

An hour later, I shut the bathroom door to close out the noise of the agitating towels and said to the boys, "Please don't go in there again," and went to finish the last pan, finally. As my hands hit the water, I heard water hitting tile in the bathroom. Great. I walk back around the corner to see Xander peeing on the bathroom door. Trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice I said, "What are you doing?" "You said please don't go in there but I had to go pee." Of course. Logical, no? After cleaning that mess, we took a nap. A very long nap.

That pan is still sitting in the sink.