My kids played *together* today and had great fun! . (scroll down) . . . . . . . . . You were waiting for the BUT after that sentence right?  Well, here is (as Paul Harvey would say) the rest of the story. This afternoon I put Elaina in her high chair to finish a sucker that she was eating because she was getting everything within fifteen feet of her sticky.  (Yes, that is possible regardless of the laws of physics, chemistry, math whatever.  Ask any mother who has ever had a child eat a sucker in her home.  I swear they just think about what they'd like to touch with those sticky hands and the sticky sugary molecules fly over there.)  I also gave her a small cup of water with no lid.  We need to work on those cup-drinking skills, you know.  Can't have sippy cups forever! (Although with all the sports bottles they make nowadays I guess technically we could.  Anyway...)  I ran downstairs to get my Mothers and More notebook because a couple people had called to rsvp to stuff and I needed to call them back.  Well, while downstairs I hear laughter.  From BOTH children.  So I stay downstairs and listen to the baby monitor in amazement.  It takes me a minute but I figure out that Shane has taken Elaina's cup and refilled it from the fridge water dispenser.  I hear her pour it out on her high chair tray.  Then I hear splashing and more laughter.  AHA!  Then Shane takes the cup and I hear the fridge water running again.  I go upstairs and they are just happily splashing away.  I can't help but smile at them.  Then I tell Shane "no more water, ok?"  (Big mommy mistake there as you pros would know--Never but NEVER make what you mean as a direction into a question.)  Then I think my mom would appreciate this scene but I left the cordless phone downstairs.  The kids are still laughing and splashing so I run to get it.  Can't find it.  Finally locate it and go back upstairs.  Care to take a guess of how many more cupfuls of water Shane has managed to get while I was gone?  From the flood on the floor and the water splashed on the table and how full Elaina's highchair tray was, I'm guessing 200.  I could be a little low on that estimate though. But, I figure, what's a little water when the mess is already made and they are having such fun?  So I let them splash a little while longer then I go get the mop.  Shane wants to do it.  Of course, he's two.  He wants to do everything himself.  So I give him the mop.  He then hangs his head and proceeds to circle the table saying "I'm Cinderella."   "I have to clean up everything."  Then he gives this big sigh!  Next he starts singing "the more we clean together together together, the more we clean together the happier we'll be"  I am dying laughing by this point and would be rolling on the floor with laughter except that there is a good inch of water down there.   I catch my breath and call my mom to share. Then Elaina starts getting tired of being wet because in the course of splashing both she and Shane's clothes have gotten totally soaked.  And the fridge water is chilled so I am sure she is cold.  So I take her out and go get her dry clothes.  Shane gets tired of mopping pretty quickly and has fallen twice on the slippery floor while I was changing Elaina so I tackle the kitchen floor mess next.  I quickly learn that I do not have a good mop for sopping up water.  Cleans great but as a soaker-upper it's not so hot.  I quickly estimate that it will take me ten years to get the floor dry at the rate I am going with the mop.  Plus, wringing it out is a total pain.  Then I see a sheet out in the corner of the kitchen floor (Shane has been playing tent with it lately.)  It's already a little wet so I think, well, it's big and I do need to wash it.  So I start using it to sop up water. Then I think, well, I need to launder the bed sheets anyway.  So I go strip my bed and use those to sop up water.  Then it was well, if I'm washing these I better do the kids' sheets too...  Then, better grab the bath towels.  Oh and Shane's shirt that got popcicle all over it yesterday since I'm washing... So the total result of my kids 15 minutes or so of happy play time together?  An hour worth of clean up for me and two loads of laundry! And, the sappy mommy part of me still thinks it was worth it.