On Tues, I picked El Destructo up from school, and his teacher had something funny to say. "Benjamin had this cup," a Dunkin Donuts paper coffee cup, "and he insisted he had brought it from home. He's been carrying it around all day and drinks from it. I took it away from him on the condition that he be allowed to bring it home."

"I don't remember him having that cup, but..." I shrugged.

On the way home, he tells me, "I found that cup in the hallway at school. When we get home, can I drink sink water from it?"

"Sure."

On Monday, when I picked up May from kindergarten, I asked her, "Did you get a new book from reading class?"

"Yes. It's a book about animals. It's non-fiction."

Then, on the way home, a boy who lives down the street from us and his mother were behind us on the sidewalk. May turns her head and shouts at this boy, "Dominick! Your cat pees on our porch! You need to make him stop!"

A few problems with this embarrassing truth:
1) It need not have been shouted such that everyone on the block hears it
2) On cat peeing is not a problem, yet it has incited our cat to mark his porch not infrequently
3) She kept repeating it over and over until...

"I know." Says Dominick.

"Well, what are you going to do about it!" Demands my daughter - insisting on a total surrender.

"We'll just have to try to keep the cat inside from now on." Dominick's mother replied.