Things that make you go arrgh

An enjoyable evening. Apparently I'm getting enough sleep, because I started the evening with three children, and I still have all of them.

Long about 7:30 PM, Lily (4) comes hollering in from the back yard, covered in mud and saying Chloe (9) did it. Chloe sneaks in and immediately heads for the bathroom so that I don't find out until she climbs the stairs, tracking mud all the way, that she's in the same predicament. But I'm already stripping Lily, standing her in the bathtub, trying to wash the mud down the drain without success.

This is solved with good humor, however, by Chloe herself, who showers Lily, normally a process filled with screams, managing to convince Lily it's a game, while I read an Elmore Leonard novel from the bed.

Later I go to check on Ethan (12) and Chloe, who've been not actually going to sleep, and I find them both in Ethan's room playing with Ethan's Game Boy. I confiscate all their gadgets, including a cable from Ethan's console game, and deliver them to their mother for safekeeping. But how mad can I be? They've not fought at all the whole evening. The only time they don't fight is when they are playing video games together. Now they've banded against us to do it in secret, and I can only marvel.