Top o' the Naughty List

Greenberg Family tradition involves opening presents on Christmas Eve. I'm pretty sure somewhere along the way, my twin sister and I convinced my parents that waiting to open presents on Christmas morning was just too hard.

Anyways, yesterday after Miles left, the monkeys went to Warren's office while I wrapped presents. They returned around 2:30pm, and we planned to leave for my mom's around 3:00pm.

They had thirty minutes to keep it together.

While I was downloading pictures for my mom's present, Warren was investigating the flood action in the garage, and Satchel was in his office, Jiro went a little nuts.

First he came in the living room with a bottle of Listerine. Before I could call poison control, he told me in great detail, how you are supposed to swish it in your mouth and not swallow it. I asked him to please leave Daddy's stuff alone.

Next, he came in and informed me that he had rubbed Daddy's new Chapstick all over his hands. Again, I asked him to leave Daddy's things alone.

Finally, as I was finishing my download and talking on the phone, Jiro came rushing back in. Satchel was screaming in the distance. "I have peaches all over me!" Jiro reported.

"Peaches?" I asked as I followed the sounds of Satchel's screams. Satchel, who was sitting on the potty, pointed to the spray bottle of bleach water in the shower and said Jiro had squirted him. Sure enough, I could see bleach spots forming all over their clothes.

The yelling, stern explanation of why we do not spray bleach, cleanup, and clothing change took about 15 minutes. During this time Warren came back inside. He was not pleased with Jiro's behavior, and nearly canceled Christmas.

Thankfully, he didn't.

I gathered everyone and made preparations to get going. Warren decided he should probably charge the batteries for the DSs that Santa was scheduled to drop off later that evening. (According to Oster tradition, Santa fills up stockings Christmas Eve night). I decided to load the dishwasher. Satchel asked if he and Jiro could go outside. I said sure.

Two seconds later, I looked out the window and saw the two of them engaging in a pumpkin massacre. (We never carved our pumpkin on Halloween, so it's been sitting on the porch getting nice and squishy for two months.)

There was pumpkin everywhere, and suddenly the bleach incident didn't seem so bad.

The great pumpkin clean up and clothing change took about 45 minutes. Convincing Warren that the whole day wasn't ruined took about 15. Before leaving, Warren made Satchel and Jiro hold up their hands and agree to a laundry list of things. (i.e. "I promise to behave. I promise to help my brother behave. I promise not to do things I know are bad. I promise to stop my brother from doing things that he knows are bad...")

They did pretty good.

This is Jiro waiting patiently for his brother to open a present:



Once the presents were opened, Jiro gathered his up in his arms and said, "I'd like to go home now."