Well. After an outstanding weekend, I must say, this week is not off to the best of starts.

The weekend was great, though. Sir Monkeypants transformed himself into his superhero alter-ego (proposed name: DaddySuperFun!, exclamation mark mandatory) and did activity after activity with the kids. He took them to the Museum of Nature, which was very informative and interesting and we all loved it (plus, free on Saturday mornings before noon — I smell repeat visit in the near future). He took the older two kids to Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo on Sunday afternoon, which again, was fun and informative and interesting and the kids loved it. He helped Captain Jelly Belly make books. He took Gal Smiley for a one-on-one trip to the Home Depot, which they both adore. He took the older two kids to their gymnastics class on Sunday morning. He carried Little Miss Sunshine around for hours on Sunday evening, since she’s sick with a bad cold and needed extra cuddling.

See? Superhero.

So overall, amazing weekend, fun for all.

Then, this morning? Not so fun.

Captain Jelly Belly was up at 5:30 a.m. He’s always been an early riser, but he’s absolutely not allowed to enter our room before 6. I could hear him messing around in the bathroom, though, and then wandering around in his room.

Then, surprisingly, Gal Smiley also got up before 6, which basically never happens — she’s a late sleeper, plus she’d been to bed a little late the night before.

The two of them, up together in a house where Mommy and Daddy were still sleeping, turned out to be…Trouble. They got a hold of a tube of vaseline and — less than six feet from our bed, where Sir Monkeypants and I were struggling to find the energy to open our eyes — decided to play “mud puddle” right there on the rug. I could hear them talking about mud, and “pretending” to get all goopy, and “pretending” to need to wash their hands, and I thought, “Oh cute, they are ‘pretending’ to make a mud puddle.”

Only it was a little too much on the “real” side of things for our liking.

Warning bells started to go off when I started to approach consciousness and I heard Captain Jelly Belly tell Gal Smiley, “Now you have to put your face in it.” Gal Smiley said, “But I don’t want to.” And the Captain said, “But you have to.” And the Gal said, “I don’t WANT TO.”

Seems like a pretend puddle wouldn’t cause this kind of disagreement, no? Moments later we were both out of bed and there was TROUBLE.

Naturally there was a lot of yelling. Lately, though, we find that yelling is not enough. The Captain just rolls his eyes and ignores us. Gal Smiley is at an age where she will deny anything and everything in order to avoid getting in trouble, and that much denial eventually leads her to believe that it really didn’t happen at all.

So today, we had to actually go so far as to find a punishment for our kids. For playing with the goop, which we think was an obviously stupid thing to do, and at the very least, they should have asked first before using something that was clearly not in the “toy” classification. For lying, because they both lied about the fact that Gal Smiley did, indeed, put her face in it, and they both tried to finger the other one as being the primary instigator.

The Captain is in even more trouble for bullying his sister into the face thing, which really upsets me. Mrs. Carl Sagan has told me hair-raising stories about how her older brother tormented her growing up, and even though they both made it through childhood in one piece and seem quite happy and well-adjusted and loving now, those past stories leave a feeling of panic in my stomach, because I know they will probably happen around here when I’m not looking.

Or, you know, when I’m lying in a bed six feet away.

So now, in addition to having a funny oily stain on the carpet in my bedroom, I’m looking down the barrel of Punishment Day Number One, of what I’m sure will be many in the years to come. They’re not allowed to play with each other ALL DAY LONG. Hopefully this will show the Captain that Gal Smiley is a playmate that he loves and needs and should not abuse. Hopefully it will show Gal Smiley that she can have fun without the Captain and does not need to do whatever he says. Hopefully they will shrivel up from boredom and thus be unable to open any tubes of vaseline EVER AGAIN.

It’s gonna be a loooong week.