I guess one of the good things about having kids is you lose all interest in worldly possessions. Essentially because you have none left. Don’t know about you, but my kids destroy EVERYTHING.  In the past week alone my children have destroyed (in no particular order):

• A brand new phone charger for the car (Just too stretchy and interesting to last the distance).

• My 2000 Macy’s snow globe   No big deal to some perhaps, but testament to a time when we actually travelled further afield than work and the local restaurant (The latter a twice yearly event when lovely husband and I find someone game enough to take on the kids for a couple of hours and escape for a bit). And BOY, did the bits of glass go EVERYWHERE. And they are blinking jaggy. The Christmas sparkle in the carpet is kinda nice though.

• About ten CD’s which have been found in random places in the garden. Apparently they are great to throw at each other (4 year old twins) and even better to chew (21 month old). So much for stashing them away where they couldn’t get to them!

• The dining room chairs. They do eventually fall apart when dropped continually onto the hardwood floor. OK … you got me …pretend, hardwood floor

• A freezer full of food. Note to self.: Just because toddler has ignored the vertical bar sized freezer in the kitchen for 20 months does NOT mean that on month 21 he won’t develop both the strength, and interest, to open it – leave it slightly ajar – and defrost all the frozen goodies.

• Oh, and marker pen versus couch, walls and my favourite cushions in the lounge. Gah.

I guess what I find more interesting than the loss of anything remotely of value, is the threat of destruction. Our (for want of a better description) eldest four year old (by about 2 minutes), has taken to threatening us. Example: After asking and confirming a bedtime drink of milk we have the following exchange:

Crazy Kid: “Mummy – I didn’t want milk – I want HOT CHOCOLATE!”

Mummy: “Well, Mummy did ask you three times darling and, each time, you said you wanted milk”.

Crazy Kid: “BUT I WANT HOT CHOCOLATE!!!”

Mummy: (Having recently introduced concept of consequence) “Well – as a consequence of you telling me you wanted milk three times, you are not getting hot chocolate”.

Crazy kid: “Do you want me to destroy the house?”

Mummy: (speechless) ??????!!!

Crazy Kid: “So – do you want me to destroy the house?”

Mummy: (Having gathered herself) “No darling. That would mean you would get a grumpy face and could lose 50 cents of your pocket money”

Crazy Kid: (Thinks for a moment) “Do you want me to destroy the neighbourhood?”
Mummy: ???? (At this point I think it fair to say, I have NO idea where he gets this concept from. We don’t let them watch any crazy TV (and there is a LOT of crazy TV). They are crazy enough without it! We have a TV channel called Kidzone and the hardest core programme on there is Calliou). And books? Well – there is the dinosaur fixation. And the world was destroyed by a meteor. Perhaps that’s it. Anyway – I digress!

“No darling – I don’t want you to destroy the neighbourhood. That would mean NO pocket money at all”.

And no, I didn’t cave and it was a hot chocolate free evening!

And hot chocolate tonight? Nope – I think it’s definitely time for a wine…