mr. fox's revelations

Oh, the places you can go in 90 minutes with the Littles!  I wish I had taken my camera ... then again, I would have been relegated to observer status and the evening probably would not have unfolded as it did.

First, dinner.  Leftovers for all ... even though they each chose their own fare, none were pleased.  I'll spare you the whining. Then, homework.  Quick and easy; you can tell the school year is almost over.  And out to play we go!

With the swings, monkey bars, tree climbing (Lexi is just downright scary in that tree, by the way), the hula hoop (not me, thanks) and a pitiful game of catch (Callie is the only one of the four of us that regularly catches the ball) behind us, Mason suggested we play "What Time is it Mr. Fox?"  After five minutes of yelling and negotiating between Lexi and Mason, I finally figured out that we were going to play some version of tag.

It went like this:  Mason was Mr. Fox, at one end of the yard.  We girls stood at the other fence and yelled (you got it), "WHAT TIME IS IT, MR. FOX?"   At this point he is supposed to give us a number between 1 and 12.  We are to take that number of steps toward him.  This makes sense to me, clock, time, etc.  His response: "Twenty hundred!"  Lexi yells at him that it has to be less than 12.  He pouts, lip out, arms crossed, the whole shebang.  He states that there are 24 hours in a day so he should be able to go up to 24.  I peel Lexi off the (proverbial) ceiling and get her to agree he can go up to 24.  We ask again, "WHAT TIME IS IT, MR. FOX?" and he tells us 9.  We walk 9 steps toward him. We ask again, he answers 14, we walk 14 steps toward him.  And so on.  We get closer and closer to him, and at any time, he could say "MIDNIGHT!"... at which point we should all turn and run back to the fence.  He should then chase us down and the first person he tags is now Mr(s). Fox.  (2011 version of "you're it!") 

Here's the problem - he really likes being Mr. Fox, so even when he has walked us nose to nose with him and he finally yells "MIDNIGHT," he never attempts to tag anyone.  In fact he doesn't even move an inch.  Meanwhile the three of us have hightailed it back to the fence, and he's still standing at the other end of the yard.

Predictably, Lexi is furious.  After the third round of this, I basically tackled him and said he tagged me, mostly to keep Lexi from losing her mind.  He pouts.  Now I'm Mrs. Fox, and of course I play by the rules, they ask me "what time" and I get them close to me, step by step, then I yell, "MIDNIGHT!"  They start running ... well the girls start running and Mason plants himself in front of me.  I skirt around him and since Lexi is already back to the fence, I chase Callie down and tag her ... and she flips out crying.  Like, bawling her head off, hitching sobs crying.  I'm holding her and asking her what's wrong and trying to see where she's bleeding (I didn't knock her down, I swear!), and when she can finally answer me:  "I just didn't WANT you to tag me!"  And she kept crying.

You get the picture, right?  We attempted various versions of this for about 30 minutes.  I'm wiped out, Lexi is yelling the rules at everyone and trying to make order out of chaos, Mason is pouting and breaking all the rules and generally creating chaos, and Callie is half-crying the whole time.  Mr. Fox certainly backed up all I know about birth order (my own included)!