David had Alex over for a three hour play date today.

Alex is five and a charming boy. He has better manners and better self-control than David which makes for a nice house guest. Unlike other play dates they've had, David shared and seemed very excited to have Alex there. That was the problem. Very very excited.

They fed off each other until I felt I could literally see the tornado spiraling out of control. All the dishes came crashing off the top of the plastic kitchen, cars went flying, airplanes overturned, helicopters crashed landed, the real furniture overturned. I tried to load the dishwasher. Leaving the room was a bad choice. I finally had to threaten to take Alex home.

Then we played the read the book and clean up all the toys game. We read one page of Where's Waldo and then one boy got to pick up and put away five red things; another page, and the other boy got to pick up five airplanes. We went on playing the clean up game until it was safe to walk across the floor. Then I got them at the stomp rockets off to the park.

After school, Amelia and Rose asked if Amelia could come over for a play date. Sure. We spent most of the time playing on the school playground. It was a gorgeous day, the first warm day of spring. It was just so relaxing and happy to be outside. We eventually made our way home. The girls are young enough that they take it for granted that David has to be allowed to play with them. I don't know what trouble they were getting into upstairs (I discovered a puzzle in the hallway later in the evening), but I had fifteen kid free minutes in which to try to undo some of David's mayhem.