visit with Paige

Ashton had a great day yesterday playing with his cousin Paige. They don't get together too often but when they do they have a blast. It's really funny to see the differences between a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. Paige has some pretty interesting ideas at times. She showed me one yesterday.

The kids were in the basement playing. Paige comes upstairs looking for something, she said they were camping. She gets what she needs, heads back downstairs. Shortly after, Ashton comes up looking for something. They take turns doing this for a little while, but other than that, we don't hear much out of them.

It was getting close to lunch time so I started the hot dogs. When they were ready, I yelled to the kids to come up and eat. They yelled that they were camping and they didn't want to.

I head down the stairs to force them to eat, planning to tell them it was like a weiner roast for their camping. As I am getting down the stairs expecting disaster, I notice the floor is completely clean. I'm thinking, wow, these kids cleaned up? How did Paige get Ashton to clean? A few more steps and my jaw dropped!

The shelves that we have set up downstairs for all the toys was completely EMPTY! That's right, not a toy to be seen in the toy area of the basement. I'm thinking, "where did they put it all?" I'm not talking a few toys, I'm talking like 3 or 4 ride on vehicles, 8 baskets full of various toys, at least 100 books and the list goes on. All gone!

I head down the hall to the spare room. A room in which Ashton rarely goes alone, but Paige seems to enjoy and they generally end up in there when she's over. Last time she was there, they had taken a number of things out of Brayden's room and put them down there.

I get to the end of the hall, open the bedroom door, or at least, attempt to open the bedroom door and I see where they have set up their campsite as well as solved the case of the missing toys! I couldn't believe my eyes, my first emotion was anger, knowing that I was going to be the one cleaning this up but then I couldn't help but laugh, out loud! You should have seen this room, it was wall to wall with toys, books, trucks, stuffed animals, blankets, you name it! Then in the middle, 2 little kids with big grins on their faces.

I know this had to be Paige's idea because, like I said, Ashton doesn't really go in that room too much. I'm very glad that she is good at helping clean up because Ashton is not, he just layed on the floor sucking his thumb because he "likes it messy". It took the 2 of us a lot of trips get everything back into the other room.

Lesson learned, quiet kids are not to be left unchecked!