Riley has had quite the trying week with his parents, poor child. It's a wonder he hasn't found a way to hop a ferry and make his way to Idaho where the grandparents could look after him properly. :)
First off, Riley brought home a bean plant from Sunbeams several weeks ago. It's grown quite well and quickly outgrew the small styrofoam cup that was its home, so Adam scored some potting soil from a co-worker one afternoon. She dropped it off at dinnertime (since Adam rides his bike and couldn't haul it home with him) and Adam excitedly told Riley that he had a package for him. Thus far in Riley's life, packages mean presents - toys or treats or the like - so he was speeding through dinner in order to see what was inside. Meanwhile, Adam leaned over and whispered in my ear conspiratorially, "it's some soil!" Hmmm... Maybe he'll use it to fill up the tremendous hole he's just dug for himself, I thought. I suggested that he might want to make potting soil sound super cool, and fast. He talked it up for a while, telling Riley how neat it would be to have some new bean dirt for the plant, and it seemed like Riley might buy it. Until he opened the large black garbage bag and promptly burst into tears. "I thought it was a toy!" he wailed. Adam quickly compensated for this very "uncool" package and gave Riley a flashlight we keep stashed under the bed (this was not entirely a face-saving maneuver; he'd been planning on giving Riley a flashlight for his birthday anyway). So crisis number one averted.
That's right, crisis number one. Crisis number two arose the next day when I teased Riley that if he drank my hot chocolate I was going to throw him into the toilet. Before you think us truly horrific parents, I should point out that Riley teases us about silly things too, like telling us that we should run and hide so he can come and "eat you, all of you!" So I didn't think the toilet thing would be so traumatic, but it was. He was near tears, so I rushed over to assure him that I was only joking. He told me that instead of saying the mean thing I said, I should just tell him that if he drank my cocoa, I would be mad and send him to bed, because the other thing was NOT funny! He reiterated that several times. I promised never to say that mean thing again. Boy, did I feel like a heel!
Anyway, he's asleep now, and hopefully when he wakes up in the morning he'll not have had any bad bean dirt or toilet dreams and will still love his old mom and dad.
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