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Anyway, his two chores are watering the lawn and making his bed. I love those chores. Because I don’t like doing them. But he LOVES doing them. He feels responsible and he likes the idea of “earning” money.

Because he’s so conscious of rules, I didn’t think too much about the need to repeat and enforce the lawn-watering rules. There’s just one rule: Don’t water over or beyond the 8-foot fence around our yard. We have neighbors on each side, plus another neighbor right beyond the fence.

But tonight as he was watering the lawn, an irate neighbor called me and said that Deep Thinker was not only watering her windows, but before she could close them, he managed to water her PRINTER which sits right inside the window. And he watered her BED which is beside the printer. I suppose her four cats really enjoyed that. I suppose I really enjoyed that phone call.

Of course, Deep Thinker was MORTIFIED when I told him about this. He was so upset he didn’t even ask about his allowance. He just wanted another chance to water our lawn. He he. We walked over so that he could explain that he didn’t realize he was watering things beyond the fence. I was so proud of him. He’s so shy, but made a nice brave apology. And I think that smoothed things over…I hope.

Hm. So that’s what a mother gets for providing the allowance he asked for…

Full of curiosity, I asked him how to tell. With his eyes opened really wide, he said, “You get to know em.”

I said that’s a really good idea, and asked how you get to know them. Face still the same–big eyes and real serious–he said, “You spend a lot of time with ‘em.”

This child thinks so much about marriage. Do all six-year olds do this? He also asked me how people decide the names of children because “it must be real hard to decide from all those names!”

We learned that newly hatched bald eagles attach to the first moving thing they see as their mother, even if it is an animal other than an eagle, or even a human.

For a few months, he stopped talking about eagles. Then yesterday, he suddenly started lecturing me about not being near bald eagles when they hatch–apparently the first thing a baby bald eagle spots moving is taken to be the parent, and the baby birds attaches to it. My son said, “DON’T MOVE if you’re near a bald eagle when it hatches out of its egg!!! The baby bird will think you are its MOM.”

He vowed, “Mom, if I’m ever near a bald eagle when it hatches, I’m gonna FREEZE. What if the eagle saw me and thought I was its parent? I’m not ready to be a DAD. I’m just a KID!“

Rowdy Rebel beat our TV monitor with our telephone. Isn’t it nice how he made that “little” knick? Our phone doesn’t work well anymore either!

Fortunately, we can get the TV fixed. The phone…not so sure.

Well, the very next day, the same “friend” asked for my son’s turn. And as we discussed, my son said, “No, I want to take my turn this time.” As it turns out, that “friend” often asked for my son’s turn on the swing. And when he finally refused to give up his turn on the swing, the boy used the old “I won’t be your friend anymore line.” Well, my little Deep Thinker was not fooled. He refused anyway. And has continued to refuse up to today. He still gives friends his turn, but only when he knows they “really need a turn.”

On the way home today, we had a little talk. Deep Thinker said this same “friend” asked if he could cut in front of him in line today. My son refused, and the “friend” tried to push ahead of him anyway. Little Deep Thinker used blocking and some interesting walking from side to side techniques, and that other guy finally went to the back of the line.

So I asked, “Doesn’t it feel good to take your turn? Aren’t you proud of yourself?”

His response: “Well, it felt good to let my friends have my turn. But it feels even better to take it myself.” What a sweetheart.

Please note: These photographs don’t accurately show just how THICK those spots on the carpet are. They’re like half an inch thick. In the photo they look so small. In person, they were not at all small.

The good news is that I was pretty surprised at how easily ketchup came out of our carpet. It only took me like 20 minutes to clean up the entire mess! And I would have been very nervous about Rowdy Rebel’s whereabouts and activities, except that he was having a timeout as he watched me clean up his mess.

The entire time he kept repeating, “Rowdy Rebel MAKE MESS…Rowdy Rebel MAKE MESS…He likes to keep everyone in the loop;)

So during this walk, I learned that Deep Thinker was really upset. His kindergarten class has a brief circle time when children can bring things to show their classmates. So, Deep Thinker brought his (and my) favorite sunglasses. They look so cute on him. So, he told me that he put them on, and everyone laughed at him!

We talked it over for several minutes, but he was still sad. I said, “Sweety, I am sure they laughed, because they liked your glasses! Not because they thought the glasses were funny. The glasses really look nice–no one would think they were funny.”

He said, “Mommy, that doesn’t cheer me up at all.” Poor thing.

(Update: I think he has forgotten about it now, because he wore the sunglasses again this morning:)

Deep Thinker is always quiet, so I really wasn’t too worried about the silence in their room. But when the silence in the living room hit the 5 minute mark, my child radar went off. I headed into the room to make sure Rowdy Rebel was okay.

HE SURE WAS OKAY. What was not okay was the living room. He had taken my entire carton of eggs (eight left in there) from the refrigerator and thrown in different parts of the living room. Broken egg in the middle of the carpet. Four broken eggs in the corner. Two broken eggs in front of the couch. My mouth dropped open, and I think I stood like that for about 5 minutes while Rowdy Rebel explained repeatedly and jovially “Rowdy Rebel break eggs!!!! Rowdy Rebel BREAK eggs!!! ROWDY REBEL BREAK EEEEEGGGGSSS!!!”

I wasn’t even sure about how to punish him. I resorted to the time-tested guilt trip a la modern-day time out. I sat him at the kitchen table so he could watch me clean up all of the eggs. As I did it, I repeated numerous times, “Breaking eggs is BAD. It’s very difficult for Mommy to clean up eggs!” He quietly watched me clean them up.

Finally, I stood up to survey that everything looked clean. There was still some yellow yolk residue visible here and there, but my back was aching, so I decided to rest and finish later. And Rowdy starts pointing toward the front door where we put our shoes. “Shoe! Shoe!” I said, “Don’t worry about the shoes.”

Then he clarified, “Egg shoe! EEEGGGGG SHOOOOE!”I walked over to the door and saw what he was talking about. There was big yellow egg yold plastered across my favorite pair of tennis shoes. Of course.

My husband noticed an odd silence and turned to check on Rowdy. He had taken the egg cart out of the refrigerator and was cradling an egg in his hand, holding it over his shoulder ready to do a little up and over type toss. My husband leaped over, grabbed the egg, and went through the whole “Rowdy Rebel, it’s VERY BAD to break eggs” thing again.

After this, we all went shopping together and then to the park. Rowdy pouted the whole day. He kept bowing his head, wrinkling up his eyebrows and mumbling with his mouth almost closed, “Rowdy Rebel want break eggs. Rowdy Rebel want break EGGS.”

Uh, I guess watching Mom clean up all those eggs didn’t affect Rowdy’s conscience they way I thought it would. Apparently disciplinary action was needed. So, after being forced to clean up a roomful of broken eggs on carpet, I still managed to make parental errors in the way that I handle the aftermath. WOW. I have a feeling this is not over yet.