It's Da' Bomb

Thursday evening was earth-shaking at our house.

Literally.

My youngest had been out with his dad at a Beekeeper's Club meeting and got home just before 9pm. Older bro was already in bed. In bed, but not asleep.

Younger bro walked into their shared bathroom to get ready for bed and closed the door. Seconds later...

BOOM!

I come racing out of the kitchen and yell up the stairs. "Jordan? What WAS that??"

"A bomb, Mom."

"A bomb? What do you mean a bomb?"

"I mean ... a bomb."

I had to go upstairs and see for myself what destruction he hath wrought. 

What I saw amazed even me. The mom of dead snakes in the kitchen was blown away. 

The bathroom ceiling was covered in little white stalactites, hanging on for their little lives.* After a moment just staring, I managed to spit out a few words.

"What...is...that?"

"A bomb. A baking soda and vinegar bomb." Apparently the bomb was also stuffed with toilet paper.

"JOSHUA! Get out here!"

"It wasn't me, Mom, it was Jordan!" 

"He's been gone all night. Try again, mister!"

"Well, yes, I made the bomb, but he exploded it!"

So the next two hours was spent cleaning the bathroom. Not me. Them. Oh, and did I mention there was also blue tempura paint on the floor and counter and, therefore, on our new hall carpet? And during said cleaning session, they managed to clog and overflow the toilet, which also resulted in a broken ballooney-thingamajig inside the tank? 

I wish I had had my wits about me enough to take pictures right away. But these show what was left after about an hour of scraping the ceiling with a broken towel rack. (It was the victim of a totally different tour de destruction.) Joshua climbed to the ceiling and scraped down the cling-ons and Jordan cleaned them off the floor as they fell. 

Now, I have to admit, we kind of bring this sort of thing on ourselves. We have four boys, and Herb is a really great boy dad. So we occasionally explode bombs in the back yard or shoot potato cannons or climb trees to make homemade zip lines from bungee cords. We generally encourage crazy outdoor stuff. But, for the most part, it is outdoor stuff. There have been plenty of projects gone awry that have messed up walls, carpet, paint, bedding, and furniture. 

But this bomb ... inside our house ... was the last straw.

Our weekend camping trip was canceled. Hubby and I just had no more energy to expend on these little hellions. In his book Bringing up Boys, Dr. James Dobson says that the parents' primary job up until the age of 13 is to simply keep the boys alive. But I have one query: 

Are we supposed to protect them from themselves ... or us? 

[Note: Stalactite: hanging down, as in hanging on tight. Stalagmite = reaching up, as in trying to grow with all their might. At least that's how I learned it in elementary school. Some things stick.]