One good shot

It's Monday night and typically Mondays mean Dancing with the Stars. But after several heartbreaks with Wayne and Cheryl and Cameron and Edynna getting knocked off, the show finally ended. With many cheers echoing through our house, the kids, Brian and I watched Helio and Julianna take possession of the mirror ball trophy. But, this Monday was different. It was the first Monday in weeks that the kids and I were left with no special program to watch while Brian was teaching. I thought I had a reprieve when I saw that Charlie Brown Christmas was on - but, somehow the kids didn't want to watch it again. Despite my best efforts to get them to sit calmly and watch the show as I folded laundry, the kids were just too restless. They reminded me of an addict going through withdrawl - they knew they needed their Dancing with the Stars fix, but there was no way for them to get it. In my desperation, I tasked Matthew with finding something for them to do.

I typically don't give Matthew a task like this because he becomes too structured in his "imaginative play" - and wants things to be a certain way. Typically, when he tries to pretend play with Nicholas and Emme, it ends up in tears as no one plays how he wants them to play and they don't want to play as he wants them to play. But tonight, I needed just fifteen minutes to finish folding laundry. For whatever reason, this seemed like a luxury to me as if by some strange connection in my brain, all would be right with the world if only I could fold the last basket of laundry.

The pretend play started out beautifully. Matthew decided that he would be a conductor and we would be the chorus, singing Christmas carols. We lasted through three songs: Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, and Hark the Herald Angels Sing - and then the frustration set in as we weren't singing the songs Matthew wanted, or weren't singing loud enough, or fast enough, or ...

And then it happened, out of frustration Matthew picked up a pair of underwear I had just folded and tossed it at Nicholas' head. Now, Nicholas, who will walk that fine line between class clown and class bully, anticipates this move as only he could and picks up one of the decorative pillows and uses it as his shield. Angered by this action, Matthew picks up another pair of underwear and aims it at Nicholas. In my own frustration, fueled mostly by the fact that I would now have to refold two pairs of underwear, I grabbed Matthew's pants just as he started to lose his balance. You see, I was folding clothes on our bed and he was standing on the bed which had symbolized the conductor's "stage". Noticing him starting to fall, I tightened my grip on his pajama pants and pulled upwards, for some reason thinking this would stop him from falling. And thus began "the attack of the wedgie woman" ....

For the next hour, my kids transformed the bedroom into a royal battle field in which the two fair princes, were trying to save the princess from the evil wedgie woman. It did not take long for us all to figure out how best to slingshot underwear across the room and at each other. It did not take me long with my competitive nature to procure Brian's underwear as my weapon of choice - being the largest pairs in the house, they could serve as both shield and weapon.
You see, all it took is one good shot to the head, and you were under the control of wedgie woman. Not wanting to accept their fate, and probably moreso accepting of their competitive gene, the boys garnered Emme's support teaching her how to sling short her Dora panties.

She's a good shot - and after Matthew talked her out of using the underwear she was currently wearing, Emme became an excellent shot - hitting her target about 95% of the time. She was so good that she realized that she had control of the game and decided that the battle would be boys against the girls. Her shot was so accurate, that Nicholas decided it was just easier to wear the underwear on his head then to avoid being hit by it. Matthew donned Brian's underwear - as more body wear - similar to that of a wrestler's uniform - for more complete protection.

Tonight was the funniest night I had in a very long time. Somewhere admist flying underwear, mind control, and wedgies, I realized the my kids and I were actually having fun in a very insane, and potentially disturbing way as pretend poop and buggers somehow became additional weapons to the sling shot underwear. I knew I should be stopping this kind of play. I knew that I should be reading to them. Hell, it isn't like I don't see the PSA every morning on Channel Disney "just 15 minutes a day is all it takes" ...

And yet all I could think about as I watched Nicholas running around with underwear on his head jumping over crumpled laundry, Matthew strategically maneuvering his underwear body shield, and Emme taking her best shot was "Man, Emme would have no problem at a Wayne Newton concert ... and so I came to the conclusion that somehow my kids had managed to get their fix ... and all it took was one good shot.