lxxvix. crayons and pizza

I was supposed to watch Brooklyn while Dad and Shonali were at Noah's lacrosse game. Brooklyn, unfortunately, was one of those kids who threw a temper tantrum whenever you looked at them the wrong way, so she was kind of difficult. Apparently Dad and Shonali thought that I was responsible enough to do it. I didn't feel like I was, but they didn't give me much choice.

"Kenna! Kenna!" Brooklyn shouted. She still hadn't quite figured out my full name yet.

"What?" I asked. Dad and Shonali had just left, and Brooklyn was already causing problems.

"I'm bored. And hungry," Brooklyn said.

"I'll order pizza later," I said, since I didn't really know how to cook and ordering pizza seemed easy enough.

"No! Now!" Brooklyn screamed.

"Fine. We'll have a snack now, but it's only 3:30. It's not dinnertime yet." I looked around in the kitchen and found a package of animal crackers. I gave it to Brooklyn and she immediately started eating.

"I'm still bored," she stated.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. I just didn't want to deal with Brooklyn now. I was tired and I had homework that needed to get done.

"Do you want to color?" I asked. Maybe I could get my homework done if Brooklyn was focused on coloring.

"Yes!" Brooklyn said. I got out a piece of paper and some assorted crayons and handed them to Brooklyn. Then I ran into my room. Finally, there was peace and quiet.

One very productive hour passed. I managed to finish all of my homework and I made good progress on my science project. I figured it was about time to check on Brooklyn and order some pizza. When I entered the living room, I couldn't believe what I saw.

Brooklyn had scribbled all over the wall.

"BROOKLYN!" I screamed. "What are you doing?"

"Coloring," she said.

"Well, you can't color there," I said.

"Why?!?" Brooklyn shouted.

I ignored the question. "I'm ordering pizza right now. I'll let your mom deal with this when she gets back," I said.

Brooklyn pouted and started searching through the board games. "Kenna, will you play this with me?" she asked, holding out the box for Candy Land.

"Sure," I said, even though I had tons of better things to do. We played until the pizza came, and despite the catastrophe, it wasn't a total disaster.