My day started as usual. I got Lucas and Ava off on the bus, and the Mr. out the door en route to preschool with Anthony. I finished my coffee, fed Nathan, got him up in his crib for his morning nap, and got Liv Grace comfortable on the couch with a Dora movie on. Then I picked up the family room and vacuumed it, did the dishes from breakfast and cleaned counter tops, got the dishwasher loaded and running, made my way to the laundry room, folded the stuff in the dryer, threw another load in the washer and got it running. Then I checked on Liv to make sure she was still watching Dora and not getting into trouble, and listened at the bottom of the stairs to make sure Nathan was still sleeping and not upstairs screaming his head off.
All was well.
So I then went on to my next task of cleaning up the play room. I picked up the Little People, Star Wars guys, and Legos and made sure to put them all in their appropriate bins. I picked up the blocks that were thrown from one end of the room to the other in what looked to be some sort of "block fight" the boys had entertained themselves with earlier. When everything was sufficiently cleaned up and put in its place, I turned to leave and something caught my eye. Woody was laying on one of the chairs - this was odd as Anthony always puts Woody somewhere safe before he leaves for school. Somewhere safe meaning a spot where Miss Liv cannot get her hands on it.
I walked over to Woody in order to bring him to Anthony's room, where he would most likely want him to be store while at school. But when I picked him up I noticed something was not quite right.....Woody was wet. Very wet. So wet that it if I didn't know better, I would have thought he had just taken a bath and forgot to dry off.
Not good.
Worse yet, when I pulled the string on Woody's back to see if he still yelled out his standard myriad of phrases such as "Howdy Partner!" or "Reach for the sky!" nothing happened. I shook him a bit and tried again. Nothing. I messed with the batteries in his back a bit. Nothing. Woody was deader than a doornail.
My first thought? Liv had something to do with this.
"LIV!"
Within moments she was in the doorway.
"Did you do something to Anthony's Woody?"
"No, Coley [Anthony's nickname] did!"
"Liv, Coley [Anthony] is not here. Why is Woody all wet?"
"Coley washed him Momma."
"Liv Grace, don't you lie to Momma."
"Did you put Woody in the toilet?" I only ask this as we have had more than a few unfortunate circumstances where I had to fish toys out of the toilet after she had decided they needed a bath or were going to go for a swim.
"No Momma."
"Are you sure?"
Insert long pause.
"Yes, Momma, I did put it in the toilet."
"We are going to have to buy Anthony a new Woody doll now. That was naughty!"
"O.K. Sorry Momma."
Later that day, we made our way to preschool to pick up Anthony and give him the bad news. Knowing how Anthony reacts to news such as this, I was not looking forward this. I explained to him that Liv had put Woody in the toilet and that she was sorry. I told him that we would go to Target on the way home and buy a new Woody doll as his did not work anymore. He simply said "O.K.. turned to Liv, gave her a dirty look and snarled "I get a new Woody doll at Target and you don't get anything 'cause you broke him!"
That was pretty much the extent of it, which honestly surprised me a bit being that Anthony tends to get extremely worked up over things such as this. But who was I to question his reaction? It was a much better one than I had expected, so I left it alone.
We arrived home after our trip to the store for a new Woody doll and I began the arduous task of getting the damn thing out of the box while Anthony waited patiently. When he was officially free of all the cords, tape, and other crap I handed him to Anthony and he ran off into the playroom to get his other closest buddy, Buzz.
Liv and I had one last talk about how we never, ever, ever put things in the toilet. She promised to never do such a thing again, and let me know one last time how sorry she was. I ended it there and headed off to the kitchen to start dinner.
About 10 minutes later Anthony ran up to me with his new Woody doll in hand and an excited look on his little face."Hey Mom, now I remember what happened to Woody! I actually sawed [saw] something on his head this morning befow [before] sklool [school] so I washed him off in the sink."
I was speechless. Liv was telling the truth originally. I guess me grilling her like I was some cop and she was a suspect in an interrogation room caused her to give in, and tell me she did do it, when in fact she didn't. My girl took the fall for something Anthony did to his own Woody doll. And Anthony, of course, went along with it.
I wonder if this was his plan all along: He made the mistake of dunking Woody a little too far under the water, figured out he did not work anymore, placed him strategically on the chair in the playroom for me to find while he was at school, knew I would blame Liv, which would result in him getting a brand spankin' new Woody.
The only part of this plan that I don't quite understand is why on earth he decided to tell me what really went down after all was said and done. Maybe the guilt was eating up my little 4 year old up inside? Whatever the case... I know one thing is for certain - I sure have my hands full with this little boy.
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