Shhh. Don't tell!

Smidge cracked us up last night. Poor little guy is so upset with James...

I made chile and corn bread for supper, but somehow I salted the living heck out of the chile. I think I could have bagged it and left it on the shelf for storage, it was that salty. No clue what happened. John, trying to be helpful, said, "It's not nearly as bad as the salty ice cream." (Our ice cream maker got pinholes in the canister, which we didn't notice until we tried our first batch of ice cream for the season. Salt-flavored ice cream is pretty vile, for the record.) We all agreed.

James said, "Mom, are we ever going to get a new ice cream maker?"

I sighed. I've meant to get a new canister, but couldn't find one online, and have been holding off on buying a whole new machine because that seems wasteful when everything else on our machine works okay. But still, that's one more thing I haven't taken care of, and should have. "Yeah. I meant to take care of that."

Smidge started *seething*. Now, if you've never seen a 4yo seethe, it's pretty funny. His little jaw clenched. His right eye both widened (at the top) and narrowed (from the bottom). His nostrils began to twitch in and out. His little hands started working like he was getting ready to go off on someone in partial Italian. "JAY-mzzzz," he hissed. "You gave it away!"

We all looked confused. Zorak tried to change the subject. But a seething 4yo will not be diverted.

In the best stage whisper I've ever heard from a child, Smidge proceeds to hiss out, "James, you spoiled the surprise that we were going to get Mom an ice cream maker For. Her. Birth. Dayyyyyy."

We all cracked up. I mean, hard-core belly laughs all the way around. Seriously, James had done nothing of the sort. But in Smidge's little 4yo mind, the mere mention of someday buying one was tantamount to just sauntering up to me and annoucning the plan. Oh, he's pretty mad at James over that one.

The big boys both tried, at first, to set Smidge straight on that one, so I took them back to the bedroom to have a little talk...

"Listen, it's no fun to get blamed for something you didn't do. I get that. But. Am I upset about the surprise? (no) Is my birthday completely ruined, never to be salvaged again? (no) Is Smidge upset? (yes) Do you think that if you were to somehow get him to see that *he* is the one who let the cat out of the bag, he would feel better, or worse? (worse) OK, then. Do you see where I'm going with this? In 30 years, we will buy him an ice cream maker for his birthday, and we'll start telling him about it in January. It'll be funny to him by then. In fact, this will be one of the few humorous kid stories I'll have that don't involve poop. I'm good with that. But right now, this is a good chance to be gracious. Honestly, did y'all hear that stage whisper? He did everything in his wee power to be discreet. We've got to honor that, guys."

By the time we rejoined the table, the boys were laughing about the more infamous poop stories we've already got. They'd decided Smidge wasn't a villian. James even apologized to Smidge for "letting the secret out", which I thought was an incredibly magnanimous move on his part. It helped Smidge feel much better. And I promised the big boys, with a wink and a smile, that I would "forget" between now and then, which made John feel better.

Funny kids. I love 'em.

We leave in about fifteen minutes for town. Me-Tae said she would watch the ninos for me while I'm at the dentist this morning (root canal -weeee!) I'm so thankful, I don't even know where to start. Hope she doesn't mind that the smaller three will be in their jammies. *grin* Hopefully, I won't be feeling too punky, as I think it'd be fun to take the kids to the Space and Rocket Center afterword. Once the novacaine wears off, we can get sno-cones! (You know, for the kids...)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy