Aiding and Abetting

Today Hannah worked really hard to get her brother in trouble. He was down the hall and I asked him (rhetorically, of course) if he was climbing the baby gate (again). Then I went to check and saw that he was merely playing with the hose from the vacuum cleaner. No sooner was I back in the kitchen when Hannah said, "Now he's climbing the gate!" And he was, because mysteriously the vacuum hose had been placed on the other side. And this was only one of many efforts to "bribe" poor, unsuspecting Jacob into the land of forbidden behaviour, where mom gets you "in big trouble".

But really, I can't fault her too much. After all, when I was her age, actually a bit older, I used to watch my younger sister get in trouble for taking off her clothes and diaper in her crib. Then one night, when my mom had had enough and warned her that she would get a spanking if she did it again, I got out of bed and helped her undress. I even undid the pins on her diaper and tried to throw them like she would. I then jumped back in bed and called out, "Mom, Sharlene's stripping again!"

Like mother, like daughter. Ingenuity, perhaps? Definitely a sign of a well-developed intellect...