When the Cat's away...

When Soren and I went to the bookstore on Thursday (a common retreat where he can play with their Thomas set and I can get coffee), he wound up sitting on the story stage and sounding out the name of a book-of-the-week, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake." This is one of the installments of the "If You Give..." series, in which the title is an opening line that leads to a series of ludicrous events. The second page suggests that if you give a cat a cupcake, he will surely want some sprinkles to put on it.

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I took Thursday mostly off from work to give Soren a mental health day, because he's really not up to doing school more than two days in a row, and he'd gone Monday-Wednesday. I slept until he called me in the morning, since I spent the previous night at the hospital, which was less than completely fulfilling, sleepwise. After breakfast, I left Soren to watch his alphabet movie (Leapfrog's Letter Factory, which he loves) so I could take a shower. When I came back downstairs, the living room was empty, and it was eerily quiet.

I walked through and searched the dining room and my office for my charge, and finally checked the kitchen. Soren wasn't immediately visible, but the baking cabinet was slightly ajar. (The baking cabinet is the one he's standing in front of in this picture, so he could (almost) entirely conceal himself; the child lock had been left ajar--as in the picture--by a certain resident of the house who responds to Momma.)


What could be in there? The goldfishies are in the other cabinet. This one has, mostly, 1) bread 2) single malt scotch and 3) vinegar.

I approached the cabinet and called out, "Soren." He immediately turned around, with the door swinging open, and asked, "Can I have a roll?" pointing the grinder rolls near where he was standing. His fingers, however, told a different story. They were, though he was looking at me, plunging in and out of a half-gone jar of multicolored sprinkles (jimmies, for those of you from New England) resting on a chest-height (to him) shelf; he was hiding in the cupboard and eating sprinkles out of the package whilst I was cleansing myself.

I was utterly unsure what to do. My first reaction was that this was hilarious and I should take his picture, but the tone was entirely incorrect because what he was doing was wrong, and he clearly knew it. However, he had not received a warning about the specific behavior of eating all the sprinkles, which is prerequisite for a two-minute time out, the capital punishment of toddler sanctions. So, I had to choke down my laughter and somehow express disapprobation. He had, fortunately for me, spilled quite a few a of the sprinkles, so I was able to focus on the mess he made (after throwing out the rest of the bottle), and his responsibility for helping to clean it up.

But I did have to call Kirsten to get the laugh out.