Five-year-old boy for sale!

Last week, after being up all night with the stomach virus, I woke up to find broken eggs in the kitchen and playroom. Connor confessed to doing it. His reason? He was pretending there were dinosaurs hatching from the eggs.

Lee and I made him clean it up. We yelled at him. We threatened him. We sent him to his room. We thought that maybe--just maybe--he had learned a lesson, and would refrain from using food as toys in the future. (He does, after all, have an entire room devoted to toys upstairs.)

But this morning I came into the living room and found a giant glass of soda (two no-no's right there: soda in the morning + food in the living room) that was a very suspicious color.

"What is that doing in here?" I asked. Just as Connor began to answer me, I glanced into the kitchen and saw, on our almost-brand-new white table, the box of food coloring. And all over the almost-brand-new white chair was bright red food coloring.

My heart stopped. I have learned my lesson about food coloring in the past. It stains hands. It stains clothes. It stains furniture. I have learned to hide it on the very top shelf of the cabinet, all the way in the back, and I have even learned to put food in front of it,  to block it from Connor's plundering eyes. How did he get it? I wondered. Even more pressing: Will it come out?

In the background I heard Connor proudly exclaim "We were doing science experiments, Mommy!" I ignored him, pulled out the baking soda, and began furiously scrubbing the chair.

After nearly fifteen minutes of vigorous scrubbing I announced my verdict: "You are not going to school today. You are going to stay home and help me clean!"

(Some of you may think this punishment sounds a bit strange. But Connor loves school. He loves his friends, and at his age all they do is play anyway, so in my mind having to stay home from school is punishment for him.)

We took Laila to school, then returned home. And we began cleaning. We cleaned his room. We folded laundry. We cleaned my room, my bathroom. I expected protesting. I expected whining. But I forgot that I have the most manipulative son in the entire world. After more than an hour of cleaning, he happily announced: "I am going to wipe everything in the house! I'm going to wipe all the floors and walls, and everything else! But you'll have to do the ceiling, because I can't reach that."

So I have a five-year-old boy for sale. He will require a great deal of training, but if you are willing to exert an excessive amount of energy over the next thirteen years, I think he will show great potential. I will start the bidding at $5. Any takers?