Musical Instruments or Weapons of Mass Destruction

Today my boys came running up to me wearing their sweetest grins and brightest eyes. I knew immediately. They wanted something. God love them, they've learned early how to try and con their mother. They wanted to bring their new special musical instruments to class to show. The school has a policy about children not bringing their toys in, but as my eldest reasoned, "It's not a toy, it's a didgeridoo" (yes, I had to look up the spelling on that.) Well its not technically a didgeridoo. It started with us going to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington last week. Which is something I really recommend if you're in the area with kids, we did end up having a great time. They have this exhibit on music and natural sounds, and their craft of the day was to have kids make didgeridoos. Great idea right?

Well, on the surface it seems so, you get to paint them, add strips of construction paper, tie strings and beads to them and then try to mimic the sound. How? I have no ideal, but in my guys approximation, it's by putting the instrument to their mouths and making the loudest most growly sound a 3 and 5 year old can muster. Really great thing to wake up to from a sound sleep at 3am. I'm proud that my heart is still beating after that. Anyhow, the instrument itself is a very long, very sturdy, industrial strength cardboard roll, like you'd find in a roll of toilet paper or paper towel, except it's about 10 times as strong and long for that matter.

So after running around playing their didgeridoos, they got bored of playing their songs, so started imagining that they were in the outback communing with Australian wildlife. They decided that they were good walking sticks, so they started hiking around the house with them. Okaaaay, no biggie. Then they decided they were hockey sticks, so I reasoned with them that they had to keep them on the ground. Then stupidly, so very stupidly, I went and did my own thing. I mean, did I really have to take care of the laundry? Or cook dinner? Or deal with the baby? Because as important as those things sound, it was not worth the wrath that came from the didgeridoos. I'm sure you all know where I'm going with this. The boys decided that they were knights, at first they were swinging and thrusting at imaginary dragons and bad guys. I'm a little hard of hearing, so if I'm folding clothes in the laundry room with the machines running, I'm not necessarily hearing the sounds of two big chunks of cardboard hitting each other, or my kids. But I sure as heck did hear it when they decided to wipe out half the contents of the table with those wonderful instruments. Then as they proceeded to blame each other, one of my charming darlings takes a swing at his brother and takes off like a bat out of Hell. His brother in hot pursuit, trying to clock him with his didgeridoo, landing a few strikes, which has his brother squealing in outrage, me yelling at them and the baby at this point decided to add to the madness by crying (yes, he does cry!).  I'm not sure whether he is scared at the mayhem that has broken out, or if he was upset that he wanted to join in. I'm suspecting the latter, he is another boy after all.

So eventually I catch the boys, when the chase turned out into an all out bloody war of cardboard didgeridoos, my 3 and 5 year suddenly possessed by Samurai warriors, screaming and wielding their katanas. I take away their weapons of mass destruction. Needless to say there was much protest and crying. I might have uttered something under my breath about burning them. I make them clean up the former contents of the table.

So back to today, they want to take their didgeridoos into class to show their friends. In the end in a stroke of brilliance I let them. They march proudly up to school and show them off to their preschool teacher who admires them in only a way a preschool teacher can. They show them off to their friends and a dad comments on what a great idea they are. Yeah, to a DAD! When I retrieved them at the end of the day, I noticed the didgeridoos parked behind the chest where the umbrellas are. The teacher who gets them ready is very sweet, but has no bones in telling you what did not go right that day. In only the way a preschool teacher can without making you feel like the worst parent in the world said, "Yes, those need to go home, today!" As I removed them from their parking spot, every kid in the room swarmed me, wanting to see the "lightsabre", "sword", "stick" Not a one was interested in the didgeridoo. So yes, in closing, I really should have known not to take weapons of mass destruction to school, but they conned me. In other news, I spent half the day with my shirt on inside out, maybe it wasn't the brightest day of my life.