I wake up to Titus screaming and screaming.
"Isaac," I yell, "what is going on?!"
"He wants me to build his Bad Cop Lego car, but I don't know how!"
I jumped up and stormed into the play room. "TITUS! DID. YOU. BREAK. UP. YOUR. LEGO BAD COP CAR?!?!?!"
"Yes," he squeaked, "I didn't like it."
I take him by the arm, marched him to his room, and slamed the door.
I sat in the middle of the playroom floor with the Lego box in front of me. I didn't see any diseranable Lego Bad Cop car pieces. Titus, it seemed, completely destroyed it.
"Isaac, do you know why he did this? Any clue? Because he's following your footsteps. Every Lego you've ever gotten, you've taken apart and lost... If you do not want these Lego sets anymore, then we will just buy a box of Lego pieces... DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
I then turned the box of Legos upside down and dumped hundreds of the "Lego little devil bricks" onto the ground.
And Eli and Isaac started to cry.
"No crying," I insisted, "We are going to find ALL the Lego guy parts, then start trying to assemble the Bad Cop car.
But first, let's have breakfast."
We breakfasted. Chocolate milk and Cheerios. No tears.
Back upstairs we started making piles of color bricks. Eli took the white, me and Isaac the black, and Titus the red--all looked for Lego guys.
After like 30 minutes of trying to find exact Legos that matched the Bad Cop car instructions, and basically coming up empty for each step, I began to have a sneaking suspicion:
"Titus, are you sure you broke up the Lego Bad Cop car? Go look in your room."
All the boys went to the room. Nothing under the bed. But then Titus said he knew where it was at: "I think it's downstairs!"
After two minutes of searching, they started to happily yell, "He found it! It was under the couch!"
UN. BEILIVEABLE. He found his dang Lego Bad Cop car.
I felt like CRAP. A poop-head of a mother.
So I fed the boys homemade brownies and root beer, hoping the sugar would erase the last two hours of their "crazy mom" memories.
Moral of the story? There is no moral.
Just remember that four year olds are crazy, and they can drive their mothers to insanity, too.
And always have root beer on hand.
