Chinese food vs. child care

Molly and Hazel came over last night to play.  Alex and Hazel started off a little tattle-tale-y, but worked things out and were playing nicely.  We ordered some Chinese food and sat down to eat.  After the kids ate their locust way through 1-1/2 containers of rice, they went off to play in Alex's room.  After a couple of minutes of blissful silence, my spidey senses perked up and I got up to check on them.  They were sitting in his room, each reading a book.  Nice!  So I happily went back to inhaling my egg foo young.

About 4 bites in, Alex came out of his room with his sleeves rolled up and shaking water off of his hands.  He answered my look of surprise by telling me that supposedly Hazel told him to take the plants out.  And as I was loudly asking for clarification that he was in fact talking about the plants in Uno's tank, Hazel was coming out of his room protesting her alleged involvement in said plant removal.  I was not pleased.  And in my state of displeasure had zero capacity for listening to two toddlers playing the blame game for something I was absolutely certain they both had a hand in.  So I kinda loudly (I had to make myself heard over the "no I didn't, she did!" and the "nah-UH!  I didn't, HE did!") told them that I didn't care who did what and I didn't want to hear another word from either of them about it.  And with that, Hazel started crying and Alex sat pouting on the couch.  Molly got Hazel to stop crying, I cleaned up the mess, and everything calmed down.  I told the kids they had to stay out of Alex's room and Molly and I tried to finish our dinner.

I got in another two bites before Alex started calling for me from the living room saying he needed me.  I told him I was eating and that he would have to wait until I was done.  Didn't matter.  His requests would not relent.  Finally, after the fifth time he said he needed me, I went in the living room and found him behind the couch in the tiny triangle of space the lamp sits in.  He had slithered in there to retrieve a string of Mardi Gras beads/beeeeeauuuuutiful necklace he couldn't be without, but clearly didn't possess the upper body strength to get himself back out.

To recap, my son was telling me he needed me for a little over 3 minutes before I finally put down my fork and went to see what he needed, only to find him physically stuck behind the couch.  So I did what any caring mother that had been ignoring her child would do...I took a picture before I pulled him out.