Quite suddenly, my six-year-old twins became the most popular boys on the block. Every day after school last week (teachers' strike ended last Tuesday!!!!), all of the boys in the neighborhood congregated en masse on our driveway to play basketball.
Always suspicious, I kept a close eye on the activities. While I did witness an occasional retaliatory groin kick over a cheap foul, no drug deals took place that I could tell.
"I still don't get why a bunch of second and third graders would want to play with two kindergartners," I told my husband one night.
"Relax," he told me. "They're just having fun."
On Friday afternoon, all was quiet on the western front.
"Where are your friends?" I asked my sons. They shrugged their shoulders and aimed for the rim.
"Then let's go on a bike ride," I suggested, opening the garage door.
My plans for a fun family outing hit a major roadblock in the form of an empty garage.
"Where are the bikes?" I screeched. I was convinced that we had been robbed.
Camber was appropriately horrified and immediately started mourning the loss of her pom poms and basket. Cortlen and Kellen, on the other hand, seemed largely unmoved by the absence of their primary mode of transportation.
A quick mental inventory of our garage's contents revealed that the bikes weren't the only things that were missing. Nearly all of our family's sporting equipment was gone, as well as a fishing pole and a four-man tent.
I glared at my sons. Under the pressure of my stare, Cortlen began nibbling on his fingernails. Kellen was the first to break.
"We gave everything to Matt/Dominic/Leo/Nick/Tony!" he cried.
"I am confused what would possess you to do such a thing," I said flatly. "Please enlighten me."
I never got a clear answer. There was something about lending Dominic a hockey stick and the others wanting a parting gift as well. There was something else about a three-headed alien with a taser gun and a penchant for wilderness survival gear.
"How did you miss the exodus?" my husband wanted to know.
Evidently, the goods were smuggled through the backyard, and in stages.
Want to guess what we did this weekend?
Let's just say that I am intimately acquainted with all my neighbors' garages and storage sheds.
***
Any other generous children out there?
Your kids ... love them. I feel like my son might be taking notes from your website, though, which concerns me a little.
ReplyDeleteYup, my kid was quite "generous" when he was small too....
ReplyDeleteOh that is just too funny!! I would've killed 'em!
ReplyDeleteI have an older sister that used to share her clothes with all her friends. Not only hers, but other sister's clothes as well. One morning no one seemed to have anything to wear. Mom took her by the arm, BEFORE early morning seminary, and headed to several of her friend's homes to retrieve everyones clothes. FYI, seminary started at 6:30AM.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest son (5) always wants to send his cousin (4) home with parting gifts when he comes to visit. It must be the age.
ReplyDeleteAngi from Tim and Angi's Family Blog
Well, I have three under three...so I guess this is one of the fun things I have to look forward to. Can't wait!
ReplyDeleteMy kids usually just give away their junk toys, which I am more than happy to part with.
ReplyDeleteWith us, it's the neighbor kid across the street. My kids are always coming home with "presents" from him. I have to double check every time - "Did his parents know he was giving this to you?" "Did they SEE him giving this to you?" "Did any adult say, out loud, explicitly, using small words, that it was OK for you to take this home and keep it?"
ReplyDeleteOh no! My son is always trying to give away his toys and little things to his friends when he leaves.. I had better start watching things closely.
ReplyDeleteI swear you have to make this stuff up! :) Seriously, how can all this stuff happen to one person?? love your blog!
ReplyDeleteMy kid is the one who is always conning (is that a real word?) the neighborhood kids out of their stuff. Somehow he got the little neighbor boy to pay him $5 for playing light sabers with him! He was baffled when I made him give it back.
ReplyDeleteYES! My daughter gave a playdate one of my nine west purses...luckily I saw it in her backpack before I left! It was stuffed with "pirate jewels" and old baby keys, I told her she could keep the jewels.
ReplyDeleteThats hilarious! Thanks for making me laugh!
ReplyDeleteMy kids have been the beneficiaries of such generosity. I had to make it clear to them that it wasn't theirs unless the MOM of the house OK'd the transaction (knowing how I'd feel if my kid was giving stuff away). Too funny!
ReplyDeleteDo you ever feel like you need to move just to save face?
ReplyDeleteMe neither. I'm just sayin'.
Don't you wonder about all those bloggers giving away *free* stuff? Wonder if this is their garage sale or trying to buy followers?
ReplyDeleteYour boys have a business plan...
Our neighbor kids )pillage our pantry for treats. See, their parents won't let them have "artificial" foods of any kind, limiting them to vegetables for all meals and snacks. So....I let them pillage the cheese puffs and snicker inside a little. Is that bad???
ReplyDeleteAs a child my mom stocked thin mint girl scout cookies in the freezer in the garage...we're talking like 20 boxes. My brother took it upon himself to share a multiple boxes with each child in the neighborhood. One for you, and one for you, and one for you.
ReplyDeleteThe neighborhood latchkey preteens used to come running to our house every time we went outside, like as soon as the garage door went up there they were. My oldest is six. They'd take off on my kids scooters and beat the crap out of them riding up and down the street. I finally had to go out there and take them back and tell the dorks that they needed to find someone their own age the play with.
ReplyDeleteMy 7 year old has to be watched when he is outside. As soon as the garage door opens up he sets up shop as the neighborhood snack-foods distributor. We were seriously confused as to how one child could go through a Costco-sized bag of string cheese and 150 juice boxes in less than a 2 weeks until we saw him on his scooter making runs up and down the sidewalk loaded down with "presents" for the neighborhood kids.
ReplyDeletelol. my son (7) likes to "trade" things with his classmates... sometimes he gets a better deal... and sometimes not.. he just doesnt understand the worth of things *sigh* or when my stepdaughter used to come over...he'd send her home with all the change he'd find laying around the house... even if it was in my room.. on MY dresser. lol.
ReplyDeleteOMG!! Your kid's are soo funny (I know you probably are rolling your eyes at that right now).
ReplyDeleteMy dd pulled a similar stunt. They had a book drive at her school and she was so amped to donate (the class who donated the most got a pizza party, but she swore that had nothing to do with it). Anyhow, we do have tons of books to spare, so I promised to go through them and give her some. I dimantled the shelf one day (story for another time) and so the pile was huge and it was hard to notice if a few..or 100 were missing. I kept putting off the sorting of the books (the drive was 2 weeks long, so I had time), but she was not having it. Apparently she (I'm guessing daily) packed about 10 books into her bag for the whole 2 weeks. When I finally went back to tackle the rebuilding of the shelf/sort the books all we had left was the entire Junie B Jones series and about 20 picture books. Nice.
Her class won the pizza party, btw. Their total donated was 285 (I'm sure 280 came from my home). Second place? 22 books. She's still grounded.
thank the lord I dont have boys...
ReplyDeleteOooh yeah, my youngest was pilfering my jewelry to trade for candy. We're talking good jewelry. One day my neighbor came to my door with 2 emerald rings, an aquamarine ring and a diamond necklace asking if they belonged to me. Yup, they sure did. A month later I spotted another neighbor kid wearing my 4 ct. amethyst necklace. Had to call the police to get that one back. Had to go buy a locking box for all my stuff. He was trading, say the emerald ring, for ONE hershey kiss.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, he ended up grounded a loooooooong time.
-Cit-
I'm so glad I'm not the only mom who struggles with my kindergartener! Thanks for making all moms feel like they don't need to put up a front and pretend that their children "would never do things like that". :)
ReplyDeleteOh, have MERCY!!! If mine had done this, DCF would've given me a good reason to abhort my blogging!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, how I love your stories! Who are the other parents that didn't come by to ask if you had really given their kids a bike? Come on!
ReplyDeleteThis was too funny. Did you get your stuff back.
ReplyDeleteI came home to house full of boys one day and found them watching a "beauty pageant" on the TV recorded from ESPN without anyone knowledge. I started kicking the kids out ready to give my boys their comeuppance when everyone started protesting they wanted their money back! My little entrepreneurs charged a quarter to watch the show. TV ended for a long time along with other things.
ReplyDeleteOMG! How did you not choke them! LOL!
ReplyDeleteFirst day visit you blog and find you blog is awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks
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