Destruction

Now, we don't just get the benefit of gifts. We also get blessed by replacements. Or, more accurately, the need for replacement.

We have a standing schedule of MIL babysitting our children one day per week. She does this out of the kindness of her heart (read: free), so we can't complain about the occasional broken item.

Some things she has broken:

The kitchen window - shattered the bottom, used duct tape, a blanket and plastic to cover the hole, and it took a week to get the replacement. Of course it had to happen in winter.

The kitchen faucet - I don't even know how she did this, but she did buy us a replacement, a year later. It was quite nice replacement though, so I'll forgive her :)

The vacuum - she somehow snapped off the part that lifts the vacuum for different pile of carpet. Well, we only have hardwood, so, eh

Various lamps - breakable things cannot be in her reach, much like my 2 year old

Clothes - add lots of bleach to one load of laundry, then immediately wash all the kids' clothes. Fun!

Pots - well, she didn't really break the pots. She did manage to get a nice pattern of cooked on elbow macaroni permanently seared into the bottom of 3 of the pots. She also turned one lid yellow. Apparently she put a pot on to boil, put the lid on the stove then walked away. When something started to stink she went back into the kitchen to discover that she turned the burner under the pot lid on, not the pot. Oops.

Sometimes I fear having her be responsible for our children. She raised her own, and they all survived, I think. Well, no one has said "Hey Mom, whatever happened to Billy?". She did leave one at an amusement park once, but that's a story for another day.