I hear screeching from the tub, and I enter to find Milo stretched full length attempting to practice his bubbling at the expense of Naomi’s space and comfort. Rugs were askew, and water soaked the bath mat. A sodden washcloth was dripping over the side onto the floor, where the lino has already been patched after buckling under the moisture.

“Right, Milo, you’re first to get your hair washed.” More screeching. I don’t care. In the back of my mind I know there’s more peaceful, humane way to bathe children, but I’m too frazzled to figure it out. So frazzled, in fact, that I try rubbing conditioner into his scalp and then wonder why it doesn’t lather.

“Naomi, if you splash any more water out of the tub, you’re getting out.”

“Me out!” she offered.

“Alright,” I agree, surprised and pleased that she volunteered. “Let me get your towel.”

There the agreeability ended. I put the towel on wrong. She didn’t want her hair rubbed. She wanted to leave the bathroom and trail water over the living room carpet. “No! no! NO!” she squawked, while my nerves jangled. Forcefully dried just shy of dripping, she exited at full tilt. I don’t remember how Milo got out, but he must have reached his towel on his own and gone streaking through the door.

I surveyed the soggy mess that we call a bathroom, then went and got a clean pair of undies from my drawer. I needed a shower too. And the bathroom needed a clean, or at least the tub did. No use doing the sink on a Sunday, when Jeremiah shaves on a Monday. I turned the key in the lock, the one door in the house that has a lock, hoping for a few moments of solitude.

Thirty seconds later the mayhem started outside the door. There’s an unwritten rule of motherhood—if you close yourself behind a door, the kids will suddenly feel the urgent need to be with you. Naomi, insulted by something or other, started wailing and pounding on the door. “Mommy! MomMee! MoMEEEE!” Milo, not to be outdone, started jiggling the door nob, peeved at finding it unyielding. I undressed, then started cleansering the tub.

The hubbub gets louder outside. I turn on the warm water, and stand under it for a moment. I hear some hard object hit the door, and vaguely wonder what it was. Jeremiah’s home, so presumably if real damage is being done, he’ll intervene eventually.

The noise outside doesn’t abate. I consider my exit strategy. There is one window to the outdoors, but it’s narrow and awkwardly high above the laundry wash sink, with a significant drop to the ground below. Plus it’s on the neighbor’s side.

I slowly wring out the myriad washcloths the kids had used, plus the sodden hand towel that had been roped into the scene. I leisurely pulled on my clothes. I plucked a few eyebrows. I considered washing the toilet. I wished I had remembered to grab my phone so I could read national geographic. I leaned on the door, contemplating the yowls still going strong on the other side. Then I felt foolish. How could I expect to escape mommy responsibilities by hiding in the bathroom? That’s five-year-old logic.
And besides, it didn’t work.

I sighed, wondering how life got to be so chaotic, and turned the key.

Unbeknownst to me, Jeremiah wasn’t trying to assuage the situation, but was instead recording it.

We could start the day with 10 M&Ms rattling in a jar for each child, gleaming reds, blues, yellows, greens. Each time I heard a nasty name fall from a pair of lips, the offender lost an M&M.

We’ve used M&M’s as kid currency before—they’re our potty training incentive of choice, as a matter of fact.  But never with such astonishing rapidity of results as this time.

The kids have gotten into a bad habit of calling each other names.  “Stupid” is a favorite, and “You poo poo” another popular choice.  Not very sophisticated yet, but I’m sure that’s around the corner.

I get why they want to do it.  Heck, I want to indulge in a bit of barbed verbage too from time to time.  But it’s not an endearing habit, and that’s what it had become—thoughtless arrows flung back and forth as a type of spiteful hackle-raising game.

Unfortunately, a parent has very little actual control of what comes out of a child’s mouth.  We can set consequences, that’s all.  And I was struggling to come up with something appropriate that I could muster the energy to maintain and which would cope with the dozens of transgressions per day that we were seeing.

That’s when I thought of M&Ms.  They’re small, yet tantalizing.  We could start the day with 10 M&Ms rattling in a jar for each child, gleaming reds, blues, yellows, greens.  Each time I heard a nasty name fall from a pair of lips, the offender lost an M&M.  I fully expected to eat 20 M&Ms that first day, and was struggling to figure out what I’d do in the likely event that Milo’s M&Ms were gone before lunch and he had no more incentive left.

But they surprised me.  Those little squirts seem to really care about those M&Ms!  The first morning Naomi lost two right off the bat.  Milo took notice, and managed to hang on to 8 of his until dinner time, and Naomi wasn’t far behind. I dolled out the prizes, praised the non-miscreants, and decided that deflation would start the next day.  Right now the price seems to be right at about 7 M&Ms/day.  For several days they have gotten nearly all their prize, and, at risk of diluting the results, I’m considering expanding the purview to all unkind acts, instead of just unkind words.

Of course, I’d really like them to understand that name-calling is bad because it tears the other person down, and they should aim to be kind to the people around them, build them up rather than belittle them.  But if parents don’t have much control over what their kids say, we have even less control over what they think.  Maybe the good habit will sink in to their core beliefs someday.

Conversation overheard in the in the back seat of the car:
Milo: “Did you know that William’s family chews bones and likes to smell smoke?” 
Ella:  “WELL, they’re not very fancy,” she pronounces, with scorn.  She goes on to explain: “It’s because their parents were poor, and didn’t have very much money.” 
I withhold comment, hoping for another juicy morsel.  Ah, the window into a child’s thoughts we get when we listen but don’t talk!

Alright, for those a little further from the characters, this might take an explanation.

The kids and I were invited over to Emma and Ian’s house for dinner one Sunday while Jeremiah was hunting, and they made marinated grilled chicken breast for “tea.”  They’re English, so “tea” is code for “dinner.”

Dumb American commentary:  “Tea” is dinner…except when it’s “afternoon tea,” which means snacks and a hot drink around 3 p.m.  Or “morning tea” which is also a snack and a hot drink, but (wait for it) in the morning.  A literal cup of tea is just that: “a Cup of Tea.”  Or, in NZ, a “cuppa.”

Ian had carefully pulled the succulent chicken meat off the bones, setting the serving plate on the table.

“I want a bone!” William, the youngest son, demands.

“I want a bone too!” says Amelia, their daughter.

“Excuse me?” Emma reprimands.

“May I have a bone please!” they chorus, obediently.

Ian passes one the gristly bone to William and another to Amelia.  The bone-heaped plate at his elbow must have been his personal stash, but a generous dad, he was willing to share.  They proceed to suck them clean.

I watch them with interest.  The thought of the greasy tendons rubbery in between my teeth makes me shudder, but they’re devouring them with relish.  Maybe this is why England once commanded an empire; their people aren’t wasteful like us Americans.

After dinner we all went over to the Halswell model trains.  Run by a club of “good old boys,” the ride-on scale models are enjoyed by drivers as much as the riders, and this evening the place was packed, noisy with train whistles and heavy with coal smoke from the genuine steam engines.

“Ummm,” signed Ian as he stands in line for a ride.  “I love that smell.”  Emma nods, appreciatively.

“The coal smoke?” I ask, choking.  I didn’t know what coal smoke smelled like until a year ago when we burned some at a DOC hut while tramping.  The term “acrid” comes to mind, certainly not savoury.

“Oh, yes!” they say.  “We used to have an open fireplace in our house; Emma’s house growing up had four.  We’d burn through a whole bin of coal in just a week.  Ummm!”

Well, perhaps to them it’s like us smelling wood smoke on the breeze on a crisp autumn evening.  The scent must conjure up images of cosiness and warmth…as warm and cozy as an English home gets in winter.  Brrr.

The next day at dinner I debriefed with Jeremiah: “Emma and Ian like to chew the bones!” I marvel.  “And they like the smell of coal smoke!”  We shake our heads.  Milo listens intently.

I few days later we had Milo’s friend Ella with us in the car; her family is also friends with Emma’s family.   That’s when I overheard the kiddy conversation in the back.

I laughed with Ella’s mom about the exchange.  “Fancy,” hum?  she said.  “We don’t even use that term.”  We brainstormed a bit, and concluded that Ella must be picking up her world view from her favorite princess movie.  It’s amusing to think what Milo’s picking up from his dinosaur documentaries….