When the Cats Away Mice Will Play

Some things about your kids you may either never know or find out later.

When Trent passed away our daughter, Ashley started confessing the many things that her and her brother did when they got home from school while I was obliviously working. 

"Remember that time you came home and you were pleasantly surprised that we had cleaned the dinning room floor?"  Ashley began her confessional. 
"Yeah... "  I cautiously replied waiting for the rest of the story.  
Then she proceeded with the story:
Ashley had a science project with a her friend Marissa who just happened to live across the block.  So they decided to work on their project at our house after school.  I was busy doing who knows what... curriculum meeting, correcting papers, cleaning my classroom, etc.  Marissa rode the bus home with Ashley and Trent to complete their project. 
The hypothesis that they were testing was which laundry detergent would clean dirty socks better; Tide or All.  I know you are thinking wow could they have thought of a more scientific project.  Well, I tried talking them into something more glamorous like dropping an egg from two stories high but they were middle school kids and wanted an easy project. 
This is the part of the story that I was to find out years later. 
Just as soon as they got off the bus they had to get themselves a snack. While they were doing this they came up with the idea that they should make sure that their socks were good and dirty before they try out the experiment.  So, they all including Trent, he couldn't be left out of the fun put on white socks and began dusting the floor with them.  That wasn't good enough so they decided to head outside in their socks. That would get them good and dirty.  All three of them headed outdoors in their socks and proceeded to run around the yard with the goal of getting their socks filthy. While outside they played fetch with our dog, shot hoops, and ran down the muddy lane. 
Ashley said that when they got back inside they had to decide how they were going to wash each sock separately. Finally they come up with the idea to use pans to soak each sock in the different laundry soaps. 
Being careful middle school children they accidentally spilled some of the water on the floor. Trent slipped on the water falling flat on his butt.
Now a few years previously I had pulled up carpet in the dinning room and we did not have a lot of money.  In a Better Homes and Garden magazine I read where you could paint a design on chipboard.  For several days I painted alternating blue and yellow squares with several layers of paint along with several layers of polyurethane on top.
When the kids spilled the water it created a very slippery  surface they discovered. 
This struck them as hilarious so they abandoned the laundry soap science experiment and came up with a genius idea of creating a slip and slide right there in the house. After pouring pans of water on the floor  they had a grand ole time sliding across the dinning room floor hitting the wall at the other end until it was about time for mom to come home.
Quickly they mopped up the floor not leaving any signs of their mischievous fun they had except for a shiny clean floor.  When I came home I was suspicious because very rarely did Ashley or Trent just choose to do housework without someone hounding them and of course the science project was not done but it was only a fleeting thought for I was excited that I had a nice clean floor. 
Now, years later I discovered what really went on when Mom and Dad were busy working. 
By the way there are many more of these stories.
So, next time you stay after school for a meeting or do classwork and you think your kids are home doing school work...hmmm... maybe or maybe not.   Or if your like me you could just think that your kids are perfect and always doing exactly what you tell them to do.