“Milo, what are your plans with that shovel?”  When Milo’s moving that quickly around the corner of the house, my suspicions are aroused.  Call me a pessimist.

“Just going down to the bridge.” He paused, looking around in what I took to be a guilty manner.

“Ok, but you know that the stones need to stay on the bridge, right?”

“Yes, mom!”  Naomi hurried after him, bucket in hand.  I resumed my weeding.

A moment later they reappeared on the patio, bucket and shovel at the ready, laden with stones.  Milo quickly positioned his shovel under his bike jump and started tipping.

“Milo, NO!  Stop!” I commanded in vain.  He feigned deaf and the stones clattered onto the concrete.  “I told you not to take the stones off the driveway!” I’m exasperated.  There’s nothing like blatant disobedience which also involves a mess to get my ire up.

“I’m building my jump up higher!”

“Not with those stones.  You’ll need to pick them up before you’re allowed to go inside.”

“But Naomi needs to help too!” he whined.

“Come on, I’ll help Naomi, you pick up yours.”

I’ll spare you the rest of the dialogue.  It doesn’t get any better.

He lost interest in the bike jump after that and the two of them disappeared indoors.  The birds chirped.  The sun shown.  The quiet was lovely…but vaguely suspicious.  I poked my head through the door, wondering if they were unrolling toilet paper (the current favorite pass time).  But instead I smelled nail polish.  They aren’t allowed free reign of the nail polish!  I followed my nose to the dining room table where Milo was liberally coating Naomi’s and his own finger tips with pink and purple lacquer.  There was surprisingly little on the table, but I was still not impressed.

“Milo!  You have to ask before getting out the nail polish, because I want to control where it goes!”  I swooped up the jars and consigned them to a high cabinet….which no doubt they can reach with their monkey-like climbing skills anyway.

Milo pouted.  I returned to the outdoors.  Upon returning I discovered that I had stimulated the muse for the little man.  He was just finishing his first chapter book.  The first four chapters of “Mommy the Pest.”

He wrote chapters 5-8 after I complained about the negativity, but he’s certainly prouder of his original work.