3yo puts hosepipe through cat flap into utility room & turns it on…… Evil genius doesn’t cover it. Apoplectic doesn’t cover my reaction..

Sunday morning.  A bank holiday Sunday morning.  That should be a relaxed, calm time shouldn't it?

No church this Sunday as it's half term for the choir.  J on call at the hospital for the morning only.  Everything really should be right with the world. Yes?  

An early ominous sign of how the morning would go was our three year old daughter's choice of clothing.  Emerging from her bedroom wearing her favourite flower bedecked party dress and waving regally to me she disappeared downstairs to find her brother.  

This would have been a good choice of clothing for a normal Sunday.  By that point we would have been on our way to church.  This morning she was on her way out to play football in the garden 

I've devised an equation about what our daughter wears.  The fancier the dress, the more potential for trouble.

Favourite flowery party dress therefore put me on my guard immediately.

Our daughter loves water.  She's obsessed with it.  Any opportunity to play with water is grasped.  No unreasonable request to soak someone is refused.

Many of our seven year old son's friends have found this to their cost when visiting during the Summer.  Arriving pristinely dressed for their play date, they are collected by their parents looking bedraggled, in borrowed clothes, their own attire held in a carrier bag.  Profuse apologies following them as they leave our home looking slightly shell shocked at the treatment they've received at the hands of their friend's little sister.

So it was unsurprising when I heard an odd scraping sound coming from the wall beneath the bathroom window as I shaved.

Looking out I had a clear view of our daughter attempting to feed the garden hose through our cat flap.  I should explain that the cat flap is in the wall, leading into the utility room from our patio.  

Her elder brother standing next to her whispering encouragement.

Intervention was swift and shocking for them both.  Unaware as they were they were being observed from above.  Jumping at my bark, our daughter withdrew the garden hose from the cat flap quickly.  She had the good grace to look abashed, whereas our son, more versed in avoiding both my wrath and any blame for their joint misdemeanours disappeared.  Innocently recommencing practicing his football skills in the garden, out of my sight.

Stupidly, I believe this to be the end of the matter.  

Until, only a few moments later, in the kitchen where I had relocated to make a well deserved coffee.  I was jumped out of my coffee making stupor by pandemonium breaking out in our utility room.

Arriving at a run I not only found the hosepipe pushed through the cat flap on full blast, but the dog grabbing the nozzle, shaking it.  Water covered me.  It covered the floor.  It covered the newly dried and ironed basket of clothes awaiting transfer upstairs.

Apoplexy does not cover my reaction.  My screams halting the hysterical giggling coming from the other side of the cat flap, the hose removed swiftly, the water turned off by our son with as much of a look of innocence and shock as he could muster.  

Marched inside the children looked abashed.  

"What did you think would happen if you turned the water on?" I asked our daughter.

She shrugged.  "Get wet?" She ventured.

No kidding.  

In scenes reminiscent of the Victorian workhouse of Oliver Twist the children, set to work clearing up the mess they had created.  Our son's pleas that he 'had nothing to do with it' brushed swiftly aside when I repeated the words I'd initially heard him say: "Go on, turn it on."

His slight smirk and growing blush giving him away.

Looking for some support, I rang J.

I didn't get much.  In fact I didn't get any.  Or if I did it was unintelligible from the hysterical laughing my story was met with down the phone.

So, we all learned some lessons from this morning.

I learned when our daughter puts on a party dress to play football I should watch her like a hawk.

Our son learned that if he is going to egg his sister on to misdemeanours he should encourage her more quietly.

J learned... Wel J learned that being out at work on a Sunday morning isn't necessarily a bad thing.

And our daughter?  She just progressed one further step along the way in her quest to become a fully fledged evil genius.