We locked our children in the bathroom. There, I said it. Technically we didn’t actually lock the door since it’s impossible to lock the bathroom door from the outside of it, but Oban did hold the door shut as tightly as he could for about two minutes while Jack and Liam tearfully pleaded for mercy. I’d like to blame our ridiculous, mean, and embarrassing parental behavior on the full moon, which this month happened to be thirty percent brighter and fourteen percent larger in appearance than any of the other full moon’s we’ve seen this year, due to the moon’s proximity to the earth. Oceanic tides were extra large at this full moon due to the strength of the gravitational pull. Is it possible to excuse ourselves with the argument that what our family experienced was a period of Super Moon induced temporary insanity? I wish. It certainly may have explained why Jack and Liam had utterly transformed for five days prior, while the moon waxed into roundness, into Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat.

Thing Two and Thing One! They ran up! They ran down! On the string of one kite we saw Mother’s new gown….Then those things ran about with big bumps, jumps and kicks. And with hops and big thumps and all kind of bad tricks

I could even try to blame our ineptitude on physical pain, as I had experienced a cystoscopy the day before that left me feeling like a needle was passing through my urethra. The medications I was prescribed to prevent infection made me nauseous and gave me a throbbing, unrelenting headache. When I returned from my book club that night, an oasis of sanity in my life, Jack and Liam were tucked into bed, looking positively cherubic while their dad read to them from Charlotte’s Web. I figured we had finally worn them out with a combination of school, skiing, and running around the zoo, aquarium and science museum (in Albuquerque where I had my doctor’s appointment) in the course of a couple of days. Somehow though , as soon as it was time to turn out the lights, complete chaos ensued; tumbling, joking, farting, flipping, running, jumping, hiding. In an effort to be “fair” we made our biggest and most obviously stupid mistake when we put both of our boys in the same room, the dreaded guest room/office/hamster room, for a time-out. Within seconds they had escaped and wearing only their pajamas scampered barefoot across the snowy ground in the backyard, reappearing through the sliding glass door in our bedroom, triumphant and energized. Game on.

Oban grabbed Liam and I went after Jack.

So, as fast as I could,
I went after my net
And I said, “with my net
I can get them I bet,
I bet, with my net,
I can get those Things yet.”

Before I knew it, we had locked them both in the bathroom, threatening to make them spend the entire night in there.

Then I let down my net.
It came down with a PLOP
And I had them! At last!
Those two Things had to stop.

Their wild whoops turned to genuine shrieks and it dawned on me that what we forgot in the heat of the chase was that they would actually BELIEVE us. When Liam began frantically begging for his blanket, my heart dropped and I made Oban let them out, ashamed that we had become the parents of our worst fears. Or at least I felt ashamed. Oban seemed to relish his moment of successful capture.

I prefer to torture myself with the knowledge that my sweet Liam, who is an absolute model of good behavior – at school and in public anyway, now leaves the door open when he uses the bathroom, scared not of monsters but of his own parents and that when Jack and Liam are one day in therapy we will not be remembered as the parents who didn’t sleep for years, who read to them before bed every night and sent them to a Waldorf kindergarten because of the kind teachers and humanistic educational philosophy, but the parents who locked them in the bathroom.

If only the Cat and the Hat had shown up to intervene.

“Have no fear, little fish,” said the Cat in the Hat. “These things are good Things.” And he gave them a pat. “They are tame. Oh so tame! They have come here to play. They will give you some fun on this wet, wet, wet day.”