The one-sided blame game

This weekend I discovered that instead of having things in a neat line, Max prefers piles--big messy ones.

The journal articles I printed out for my grad class ended up piled in front of the couch, some ripped apart, some crumpled up in Max’s hand, some chewed up and resting in Ella’s mouth. When I asked what happened, his first response, “Ella did it!”

Ella and Max were playing the kid’s piano in the piano/my book room, when things became less about the music, and more about the books. When I checked in on them, I discovered two shelves of books and journals piled up on the floor. Max’s response to my anger, “Ella did it!”

In our laundry room, we have hooks for coats and a place under to line up the shoes (like in Japan, in Minnesota, people take off their shoes in the house). We have about a dozen pairs of shoes that I had neatly lined up in the morning. Later I discovered Max and Ella sitting amongst a huge pile of the shoes, and no line of them to be found. Ella was chewing on my boots as Max was laughing as he cuddled up in the shoe pile. His response yet again, “Ella did it!”

Poor Ella…but it gets worst.

Max and Cameron share a room. There are some bunk beds, and a toddler bed. Currently, the only sleep on the top bunk is done by their countless stuffed animals. While I was searching through some old clothes in Ella’s room, I suddenly heard Ella screaming. Max had climbed the ladder to the top bunk and started throwing all the animals down in a pile…on top of Ella. Except one of the animals was not a “stuffed” one, and the big rubber elephant hit her right above her eyebrow.

This time, Max knew, “Ella did it” was not going to fly with me, as she was the one on the ground screaming bloody murder. This time his only response was, “Ella crying!”