One of the odd little details about taking kids to restaurants is that the kids get to take their cups home. It doesn’t seem to matter how fancy the restaurant, they always seem to serve kid drinks in take-home plastic cups.  Most of these cups have proven to be dishwasher safe, which means we now have dozens of the things.

We keep them in a drawer the kids can reach, so we they don’t have to ask us to get them water anymore. They can get their own.

Yesterday morning, my youngest woke me up to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to come out of the bedroom. He and his brother were fixing a surprise. I was more than happy to oblige. My wife out of town, and we had gone to church on Saturday, so it was a great oppportunity to sleep in. Besides, we do have something of a tradition of them making breakfast (click here).

Our dogs (two big black labs) were trapped in the room with me, but they seemed content to snooze. I dozed a little bit, then read a book, then turned on the TV.  Finally, I called out to see if I could come out yet.

“Not yet,” the little guy shouted back.

“But I’m really hungry,” I answered.

“Almost time!”

After a few more exchanges like that, they brought me out of the room. They’d set up a breakfast train across the living room, filled with snacks and treats. At the end of the train, a line of plastic cups snaked its way into the kitchen.

Each cup was filled with water, and each one sat on a paper towel.

“We put the paper towels under them to catch any spills,” one of the boys said. I don’t know which one, primarily because my brain was still processing what I was seeing. They had used every plastic cup we owned, and most of a roll of paper towels.

“That was good thinking,” I said. “We wouldn’t want to get the floor wet.”

That’s when the labs gallumped out of the bedroom, knocking cups and water everywhere.