My wife was in Texas for the first three days of this past week, leaving me to fly solo with two sick kids. No worries there, of course. The boys always seem to get sick when their mom leaves town. I’m getting kind of used to it. In any case, everything went smoothly, or so I thought.

The day she was supposed to return, I decided to try to straighten things up. Both boys were healthy again by this point.

“Come on guys,” I said. “Let’s do some cleaning.”

“Aww…” the youngest whined from the couch.

The oldest took a different approach. He stood facing me, hands on hips, and demanded “Why?”

I’m not sure what he was thinking. Did he really think he could intimidate me into not cleaning the house?

“Because,” I said. “Momma’s coming home tonight, and we want the house to be clean for her. Right?”

“Yeah,” my youngest chimed in. “Because maybe that way she’ll cook us something!”

Sheesh.

For the record, I couldn’t cook anything for them while she was gone. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but they were sick. Crackers, toast, and chicken soup was all they were allowed to eat.