On children and birds

Within the last couple of hours I have learned two new, extraordinarily valuable pieces of information. The first came about when, as we were driving down "Candy Cane Lane", a street upon which there are roughly 7 billion Christmas lights, Eme started one of her chats. She tends to talk to no one in particular; she simply expounds on whatever comes to mind. This time, as she chatted about this or that, I heard little phrases such as "Daddy and Eme and Ethan and Eme and on the roof" and "we was on the roof and Daddy and Eme and Ethan".

Hm. A theme.

Daddy. Ethan. Eme. And the one that really got me: roof.

"Emerson," I asked casually. "Were you on the roof?"

"Yeah," she called back. "Daddy and Ethan and Eme on the roof. Puttin' lights on."

Noting that my son was notably quiet, I decided that he knew the validity of his sister's statements.

"Ethan," I said, "did Daddy let Emerson go on the roof?"

Silence.

"Ethan, if she went on the roof, I know it wasn't your fault," I said gently, belying the rolling boil of a temper that was just beneath the surface. "You wouldn't be in any trouble at all. So...did Daddy let her go on the roof?"

I knew it. Once any threat of prosecution was removed, he did it. He sang like a bird.

"Well, you were out with the ladies, so Daddy decided to put on the lights," he said. "And so he let us go up on the roof with him, and Emerson was up there, but I was VERY careful, and Daddy let her."

"Yeah, Daddy let me," Emerson chimed in, not to be outdone.

Dave had the good fortune of being at Scouts when I got home. But then he walked in, with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, without a clue of my newly acquired knowledge.

"Hi honey," he said, blissfully unaware. "How was your day?"

He now knows exactly how my day went. He is also aware that his children will not hesitate to throw him under a bus if it means that they will avoid mother-cutorial prosecution.

And me? I'm looking forward to finding out just how many carats my Christmas gift will have.