For the Love of...PUZZLES (broken toys and missing dirt)

My son Isaac LOVES puzzles. He can spend a couple of hours a day putting puzzles together. We put them together differently. I like to put the edges together first. Isaac likes to start with two pieces and work his way across. He doesn't even look at the picture on the box! Which is a good thing because puzzle boxes don't survive long here, we have most of the 24 piece puzzles marked in ziploc bags! It takes up less space too. When he finished one of the puzzles I told him, "You're really good at those puzzles" He told me, "I AM Mom, I AM"

So as I was looking for Isaac's picture I found this one. A couple weeks ago as we were cleaning out, and I kept finding all these chewed up Legos and such, but since we have an abundance of Legos it was no big deal to just throw them away. Then I found these pieces of my (yes mine) Victorian Playmobil House and other sets. I was ticked! These are only a couple of the pieces I found that day. Broken table and chairs, chewed up ski pole, broken cooking pot, chewed up Robin Hood hair, and the girl's FOOT has been chewed off!! What is the deal with chewing up the toys? One of my kids has some oral fixation with plastic. Though it's not just chewing things up, it's also taking things apart or just breaking them.

Here is Jerome Bettus of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Poor guy has been decapitated and had a pin stuck up his neck. Maybe they were trying to make him a pencil topper? Flash over there no longer can hear danger approaching because his lightening ears have been chewed off!

Geez! So do you think they are just CURIOUS, BORED or just plain DESTRUCTIVE??

My dad came by today to fix a sprinkler that had been leaking out into the street. While he was here, I had him move the big heavy Jade plant to the front porch. It was getting way too much sun and starting to look ill. He also brought over some stepping stones and a garden wheelbarrow and one of those things you wrap your hose around to keep it neat and his blower so we can blow out the saw dust and insulation from our garage. Right on dad!

The little ones have been digging this hole in the backyard, they're all proud of it too. The only thing is they've dug it down to the sprinkler pipes and dispersed the dirt all over the backyard, so now there's no dirt to fill the hole back up! They've tried filling it with Polly Pockets and stacking cups but that wasn't good enough for mom. You can see where they've piled some of the dirt though...there's dirt spread across each of the yard toys I hosed off the other day, as well as across the lawn and on the patio and on a chair. Just none anywhere near the hole!

It gets frustrating. But then Pure Joy comes running down the hall singing, "la la la la....la...la...Can't Touch This!" and it makes it all worth while!!

LOL!!