Choosing one's words carefully...or not.

While Skip & Harry get along VERY VERY VERY VERY well, they are, well, little boys. As such, they have a hard time remembering that tattling is not tolerated in our house. Some weeks they do really well, and this week, well, not so much. My days are often peppered - no heavily seasoned with:

"Harry took..."
"Skip said..."
Harry was..."
"Skip won't"
"Harry is"
"Skip went"
"Harry gave"

You get the idea. Well today as I was getting ready for Cirque (more in another post about that) I looked outside to see Harry in our next door neighbor's yard. Somewhere he definetely is not supposed to be unless we are there with him. I called him in and the look on his face told me this would be interesting.

Having learned it sometimes helps to be forthcoming with information, the words were spilling out of his mouth faster than you can imagine. As a result, I wasn't catching any of it. If he gets excited, he blurts, and mumbles.

Anyway, the one thing I did catch was "Skip". When he got near me I asked him to explain what he was doing. Emphasis on HE. I told him the explanation had better not contain "Skip" or that he'd have a long time out. He stopped talking for about 15 seconds before saying anything, but then offered this:

" A stick was trying to hit my foot"

Of course it begged the question "All by itself?" to which he replied carefully:

"Nope, with a boy's help. But I didn't say Skip."

Technicalities.