Kick the bucket

Yesterday Mark was mouthing off a bit, so I rewarded him with a chore. "You get to water the plants," I told him, and he grimaced.

He was outside all of two minutes before the complaining began.

"Mom, where's the thing?" he called out.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but sometimes it's easier to answer than ask for clarification. "I don't know," I called back.

Apparently he found it, because soon enough he asked if I would tighten the sprinkler nozzle on the garden hose. "It's leaking!" he shouted. "Come tighten it."

I know Mark, who's a real-life example of what happens when you give a mouse a cookie. I'd tighten the nozzle, then he'd ask me to show him how to water, and pretty soon, I'd be doing all the work while he was playing basketball. So I stood my ground, pretending to read the newspaper.

"Try tightening it yourself," I answered. "You're a strong kid, use those muscles."

Momentary silence, which was interrupted by Mark informing me the hose was broken.

I sighed, and reminded myself to respond to the situation, not to react. (I've been reading my Have a New Kid by Friday book.)

"The hose works," I responded. "I've been watering the backyard with it for six years."

"Six years, huh?" He snorted. "Then I guess you broke the hose."

"If the hose doesn't work, find another way," I suggested.

He seethed outside for a couple minutes, then stomped inside and demanded to know where I put the watering can. When I reminded him he'd used it last, with his Grandma, he stopped looking and picked up the phone.

"Fine," he said, smirking. "I'll call Grandma, and she'll tell me where it is. What's her number?"

I shrugged. "You can call her if you know her number."

He stared at the phone for three minutes, then put it down. He walked into the kitchen, scrounged around the cupboards a few minutes, and found this:

I kept reading, and listened as he filled it with water, then dumped it out. He refilled it, and I heard another long whooooosh as he dumped another gallon of water down the drain.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked.

He answered with a loud, "GRRRRRRR!" and resumed slamming the cabinets again. Finally, he stomped by with this:

Mark brought it outside, and filled it five or six times with the hose. When he finally finished, he scooted away before I could find another task for him. I never did find out why he kept dumping the bucket water down the drain...

...Until this morning, when I put the bucket away, and noticed noticed two large cracks in the bottom. He wasn't pouring the water out of the bucket, it was just draining itself.

I always say Mark spends 30 minutes plotting to get out of a two-minute chore, and this was a prime example. He didn't even need a sprinkler head on the hose in the first place; most kids would've simply watered the plants with the hose.

But not my boy. Just goes to show that sometimes, if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll bake a cake instead.