Saturday, September 22, 2012

Good Fences and Crimes Against Humanity

They say that good fences make good neighbors.
We do have most excellent backyard neighbors and Cannon is so happy to have his "fence friends" just over our back fence.
This afternoon and evening he would go outside and call, "Hey you guuuuuyyys!"  To his delight his friends would pop their heads over the fence and they would talk and tell jokes.  I don't know why they didn't just hop the fence or go to each others houses.
I interrupted Cannon to go on a walk with George and I, but he resisted, "Mom, I'm talking to my fence friends!"
I especially love the boys' matching headlamps.
I went to lunch with my sister on Friday.  It was wonderful and she is wonderful. There is normally a pretty hefty price to pay for leaving the children home alone at the lunch time hour; made worse on Friday by the transition back to school life after a fun vacation last week.  There has been some... uh...shall we say... contention.... in our home this week.  Considering the emotional temperature of the children, the arguing was likely to escalate and there were likely to be injuries or, heaven forbid, an interrupting phone call during my lunch date!  Can you imagine??
The "Crimes Against Humanity" log was my solution.  I left them with the instructions that if there were problems to write them down and I'll deal with it when I get home.

What do you think?  Would they use it?
The crimes against humanity started silly but the infractions grew steadily more severe.  But as you will read, all crimes have been dealt with-- my response is in parenthesis. 

#1 There is dust on the bananas (Ha, ha, aren't you clever!)

#2 The dust pan has been stolen (a likely excuse for not sweeping)

#3 The apples are missing (no, they're not-- they've all been eaten)

#4  Elinor is writing stupid stuff in the crimes against humanity notebook (there is no such thing as a stupid entry.)

#5  Bethany is hoarding the crimes against humanity book! (There is no limit on how many entries you can make)

#6 Elinor is making a mess! (Elinor, go clean up your mess)

#7 Clark said "Shut up" to Elinor (Clark, you know you may not say that to any member of this family.  You need to apologize or you can't go to London's house on Saturday.)

#8 Clark is playing Super Mario Brothers without his stuff done. (This is a true crime against humanity.  You may not do any computer today).

A mother's work is never done.

1 comment:

Schramm Family said...

LOVE IT! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea. Im going to copy you. Hopefully my children will not act like children and our book will not have any entries. :) Excellent idea.