Thread by @ThomasHCrown

@cyamas remind me that it's been a while since I offered you little glimpses into into my life brought to me and you by my children. I will try to rectify that on Twitter today.

I will take as my first reading the first weekend of my hiatus. To set the stage, I had planned on getting some rest on a Saturday morning for a change and so tried to sleep in. SPOILER: MY WIFE SUCCEEDED.

<knock knock>
Wife: Hoozit
Me: <jumps up not because I'm the hero of this story, I'm sort of the anti-hero, but because I'm paranoid and want to let the wife sleep in if no one else, goes to the door to whisper>: Hoozit
5: <whispers> I have bad news I don't want to tell you.

W: <snores>
M: <throws on blue jeans and creeps out of door> Tell me.
5: Daddy, it's so bad, I decided I couldn't even tell you.
M: <now fully awake> But you did. <tries to make ears wake up enough to hear, hears something like roaring, tries to make ears go back to sleep> What?

5: [Penultimate] is downstairs and Daddy, it's bad. You don't want to go down there.
M: How long has this--
5: 34 minutes.
M: ...
5: ...
M: I'll play along. Why are you telling me now.
5: If I don't tell you, you'll be happy until you see it. If I tell you, I'll be happy now.

4: <LOUD WHISPER> DID YOU TELL HIM?
5: <LOUD WHISPER> YES AND IT'S EVERYTHING WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.
<CRASHING NOISE, MORE TWO-YEAR-OLD ROARING IN BACKGROUND>
M: <rubs eyes and heads down stairs while 4 and 5 jump up and down with excitement>

I could tell you that what follows next is out of your worst nightmares.

This is only true if you're a parent and finding your toddler standing on the kitchen table, roaring, throwing things at laughing children pretending to take him off the table while another dances with a baby is among your nightmares.

This was not the end. It was not the beginning of the end. It was not, sadly, even the end of the beginning.

At 02:13:?? until my wife would eventually wake:

M: <what my children describe as my cold-angry voice> What is happening.
<Everyone but P, Baby, 4, and 5 stop dead>
5: Yes! You OWE me, [6]! <4 and 5 high-five>
1: Dad! I was going to warn you but Penultimate is evil and I didn't want to wake you!
5: But I was good and did.

[Ten minutes spent sorting details and placing appropriate children in appropriate corners, playpens, etc.]

6: I'm sorry, Daddy!
M: You are still being punished for encouraging [Penultimate].
6: But [5] helped him up on the table! <smiles as I turn, thinking I don't see it>
5: THAT'S ONLY SORT OF TRUE.

M: ... [5]?
5: He was climbing on the counters and swinging around those flour thingies [containers; she always gets less articulate when she's been found out] and I was trying to stop him from doing that!
M: By putting him on the table?
5: I was worried you wouldn't understand!

6: You said, "This will be funny"!
5: NO! I said, "This will be funny if you guys let him run around like crazy and don't do anything about it so you need to take him down right after I put him up there!"
6: BUS. TED.
5: I'll kill you!

[Intermission]

01:56:?? until their mother wakes:

M: <walking into kitchen>