Busted!

I would consider myself a pretty fair mom. My girls certainly have a looser leash than what I had growing up. Not that my munchkins are running wild through the streets, hijacking Big Wheels or putting chalk graffiti on neighbors' houses.

I've no problem letting them have a little more say on the going-ons in their life, perhaps the occasional say on what they want for dinner. Though I'm not succumbing to the outcries for ice cream, donuts and candy for dinner; but they do get an occasional sugary treat, much more than the zero-tolerance I was allowed as a kid.

Yet, I was pretty puzzled over how quickly a six pack box of organic classic creme cookies was being devoured. Too often a twirl of the Lazy Susan would produce one empty box after another and I know very well that these cookies were being eaten by Brie and Brie alone, even though these rather pricey treats are guarded with a strict rule of only one bag consumption a day. That was the limit so when an entire box of what should contain six packs of cookies was found to be emptied after only two days - I was getting suspicious.

I couldn't point fingers at the hub, anything "organic" sends him screaming in the opposite direction. I despise crème-filled cookies and likewise Emma could care less for them. So that left only the cat and dog; and as far as I could tell neither had grown opposable thumbs so as to allow vantage of opening those cookie bags I can barely open with a pair of scissors.

Call them the Alcatraz of Cookies.

I hadn't thought much of it, even after yet another empty box turned up. After all, I wasn't seeing any tell-tale signs of empty cookie bags lying about the house or deposited in the garbage can. That was until the hub called me from the living room where he had, oddly enough, pulled the couch out from the wall.

"Dear, come look at this!" The hub pointed over the back of the couch where I tucked my chin over the side and gasped.

B-U-S-T-E-D

Below the curtain hem, without any other method of concealment, there was a deposit of so many cookie bags that I quickly stopped counting and started yelling for Brie. My eldest and apparently sneakiest of children. She had no comment, of course, on how all those empty cookie bags got behind the couch.

How convenient.

Originally published in the Daily Advocate 2007.

Bethany J. Royer-DeLong is currently entrenched at home fighting the good war against the gimmes and the I-don't-wannas. She blogs recklessly, as all mothers of children under the age of five should, and has been working on that "supposed" great American novel, times a dozen. You can visit her at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and email her at broyerdelong@yahoo.com