Kids do the damnedest things.

As of late, long days are the rule and not the exception at the Bramble Tamble compound.

I detailed earlier the saintly nature of our babysitter, who has been willing to take Son at all hours of the night as necessary, as well as keep him for three days at a time when we go on our Tunica trips. She keeps him late when Wife works late, takes him to doctor appointments when neither of us are available, etc.

These things, of course, tend to come back around to you, and they did starting last Friday, when Sitter went to New York with her husband on a business trip. She took her oldest kids with her (the ones who are still school age, anyway; her very oldest son goes to college), but left her two youngest girls, ages 3 and 1, in the care of Wife and me. “Nine days of fun and sun,” we called it, trying to sell the kids on the merits of staying with us. (There have been neither.)

It should be noted here that I did not necessarily consent happily to this arrangement; at the very least, it wasn't consent so much as it was resignation. Here's my thinking:

We have paid Sitter fairly handsomely for all of the extra things she does for us and Son (as noted in paragraph two above). Are we even, in the grand scheme of things? Well, she charges us below-market rates for her services because of her pre-existing friendship with Wife, so maybe not ... but it's not like we're going to pull her aside and say, "Hey, we'd really love to give you more money for this." Regardless, I consider us even; it's not exactly our fault she won't tighten the noose and extort ... I mean, extract ... more money from us.

I should go on the record also as saying this: I love kids … my own. I’d walk on water if I could for kids … my own. Our house is well-suited for kids … our one. And maybe a future one or two.

Still, my protestations amounted to nothing, however, as far as altering the plans for keeping her girls with us was concerned.

In the first minutes after the arrival of Wife on Friday night with three kids in tow, I even pulled out a master four-point plan for making sure that this would not come to pass again in the future (i.e. more kids for us): vasectomy, divorce, moving to the monastery down in Ferdinand, turning gay. Any combination of the four was, to me, viable, though I'm not clear how I would have swung #3 and #4 simultaneously.

This was all very humorous to my wife, who clearly didn’t understand the gravity of my threats. I even wielded scissors at one point over the weekend to take care of option #1, and had to have them taken away from me.

(I suppose it would have been somewhat rash for me to do that.)

It was roughly 45 minutes before we averted the first crisis with the additional children: the oldest one requested SpongeBob mac & cheese. All well and good – I wouldn’t have minded paying the extra $8 a box for the SpongeBob name – but our small-town grocery does not stock SpongeBob mac & cheese. SpongeBob mac & cheese is found only in your more high-falutin' superstores, apparently.

In my mind’s eye, I imagined the colossal fit that she would throw upon learning of this development; she’s got bright red hair and a temper to match. Surprisingly, the apocalypse did not come to pass, and supper that first night came and went without incident.

It was the first time that the 3-year-old had been away from her mommy and daddy, and it began to wear on all of us as the weekend went on. We ended up arranging for Sitter’s sister-in-law to come get her and keep her through the rest of the week; at the very least, with that arrangement, she would be able to spend a little time at her house and play with her toys and whatnot. Good for her.

So, we’re down to two kids – Son (who is 23 months and 2 weeks) and the 18-month-old, who for the purposes of this story, I will call Transient.

Still, it's not been the walk in the park that we had hoped it to be with the removal of the 3-year-old from the picture. Take last night, for instance:

Son has a box that he likes to play in. ($1,000 worth of toys, and he plays in a cardboard box.) Said box is probably 18x18x24. Many evenings, after it gets dark out and he can’t play outside anymore, he’ll come in and play in his box, which has several of his toys in it also.

“Wouldn’t it be neat if we put Transient in there with him?” Wife and I asked each other at practically the same time. Sure, it’d be cute!

(An aside: Lewis Black does a routine about why they stopped selling knives at airports – something about getting liquored up on the plane and being in a confined space with other strangers not lending itself well to safe knifeplay.

(The same principle applies here.)

Putting Son and Transient in this 18x18x24 space went well for about 20 seconds. Then, being a baby, she wanted to play with a toy that he was playing with, and tried to pull it out of his hand.

Let it be known here that being an only child, Son has issues with sharing his toys.

Son’s right hand and Transient’s left hand were death-gripped on this toy; I think it was one of our old cell phones. In his left hand was a little Hot Wheels car … and he started beating her in the head with it to try to get her to release the cell phone.

I was too shocked to spring into action immediately.

(Somewhat shamefully, there was also a part of me that couldn’t help but think to myself, “… yeah!” Because, you know, you tend to root for your kids when these confrontations come about, and we’re not going to raise our son to be a pacifist.)

Transient has a squealy squawk for a cry that grates on my last nerve, and naturally, upon having the front of a diecast car tattooed on her head, the squawking started. We pulled her out of the box and put him in “time out” (ugh). Once “time out” was done and he apologized to her, he went back in the box … and she wanted back in the box with him because the toy that started the original dispute was still in it.

Being a dumbass, I lifted her into the box.

Son was not pleased. He started beating her with his hands, and then laid down in the box and just started kicking the holy hell out of her.

Back into time out. And the box had to go. I hid it in our bedroom and shut the door, evoking fits of rage from Son and Transient.

“Hey, let’s get another box so they can both have boxes to play in!” Wife suggested. I cleaned out one of her Tupperware boxes which was about the same size, got the original box back out, sat both on the living room floor and placed Son in the box with his toys, and Transient in the empty box.

“Son – would you like to give Transient some of your toys so she can play with them in her box?”

With pleasure, I’m sure he thought.

He starts picking up toys with both hands – mostly diecast cars – and throws them at her, most of them plunking her in the head and shoulders.

You would think that she would have been happy to have some toys in the box with her. Of course, she wasn’t.

Eventually, the struggle ended, and Transient went to bed, followed by Son about an hour later. No bloodshed or, shockingly, visible marks on this night; hopefully, the outcome will remain the same over the next six days.