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Pest control


At dinner today, Luke disappeared for a minute or two. He was in the kitchen, so I didn't think he was getting up to too much trouble, but he was out of our view. After a minute or two of ominous quiet, I got worried and got up to see what he was doing.

Luke had opened up the box with the pantry moth traps in them---a piece of cardboard with extremely sticky stuff on the inside (see picture above---my first foray into putting pictures in blogs!). He had taken the two traps out of the box, and slid them on his feet. He was coming very proudly across the floor to show us his new footwear.

I learned in that moment that it is possible to find your child side-splittingly amusing and incredibly annoying at the same time. He was so proud. He was so cute in those little traps. They were very hard to get off his feet! But he had been very naughty. One of the rules is that you can't laugh in these situations---it just rewards naughtiness. On the other hand, yelling uncontrollably at your child is frowned on as well. Which left me paralyzed on the floor.

Fortunately, the other people in my family stepped up. Michael took Luke upstairs for a time out. Eleanor wasn't annoyed, but recognized that she absolutely should not laugh. Amanda was oblivious. I just hope that the next time he gets into trouble it is either obviously naughty or obviously funny---being both at the same time is painful.
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