It seemed innocent enough.  Breakfast was over.  Johanna was still hungry, she said.  She brought over the box of BRAND NAME CHEERIOS a friend had given us and asked for some.  I dipped my hand in and scooped her out some.  Her little three-year-old hand only holds about 13 O’s so she was back a few minutes later.  I was doing school with Tabitha at the time.  I gave her a second handful as she informed me she was SHARING with Katriel, and wasn’t that nice?  Um, yes, VERY nice.  Good girl, Hanny.  Then she was back for ANOTHER handful.  And that is where I made my mistake.  I just kept the clip off and handed her the bag.  After all, she was just sitting there on the floor next to me with Katriel SHARING her Cheerios.

I heard one get crunched behind me and just started to turn around to advise her to pick up any strays off the floor JUST as IT was occurring.  It was like a bad slow-motion movie edit as I started to say, “NooooOoOOoooooo,” as Katriel picked the bag up off the floor in from the bottom end.

See how she didn’t want to put the bag down?  She knew she’d found something good.  Mama never had jumped that fast before! 

Oh yes… I did let them eat as many as they could off the floor.  I just mopped Friday.  I even invited the older kids and asked if they were hungry.  (Did you read the part about them being BRAND NAME CHEERIOS?)

*sigh*

Thankfully, it was only about 1/3 of a bag.  The other box is firmly sealed as yet.