Fire Engines and Little Monkeys

Today our playgroup visited the local fire station. One of the dads that comes to playgroup is a volunteer fireman so he organised it all. It was fantastic - he showed the kids inside the station, put on all his gear (including mask and tanks - he honestly looked terrifying so I hope we never have a fire where they come in dressed like that), let the kids climb inside the engine, turn on the siren, and best of all - they all got a turn squirting water from the hose.


Back at home and the boys had had their lunch and were sitting at their table drawing pictures so I popped out of the room to put the washing machine on. I heard them laughing and thought "oh that's good - they're playing nicely together", when really I should have thought "that's strange - they're laughing and not fighting with each other". Max came through and said "Mummy - Elliot's drawing". Warning lights went off in my head and I ran back through to the family room to discover Elliot standing with a whiteboard marker in his hand and black scribbles on the windows, floor, tv screen, Max's new book, and on two of the three new rimu bar stools by the kitchen bench (the third luckily had a magazine on the top - but that was also covered with scribble). Elliot got put straight in the naughty corner while I tried to clean up - FYI whiteboard marker comes off glass and laminated flooring, but not books or bar stools (it's just soaked right in). Max claimed he hadn't seen Elliot do any of this - however I later found pen marks on the top of my laptop (kept on the breakfast bar) so knew Max had been involved too - there is no way Elliot could have reached that high. I'm guessing Max started it and then gave the pen to Elliot and told him where to draw. I hope we're going to be able to sand the stools down, re-stain and oil them to get rid of the marks.
It's going to be a long two weeks ..... at least it wasn't a permanent marker pen!