Let me just say that if the weather turns warm, and you’re lounging in your chair with a nice iced tea, deeply engrossed in the last half of “The Help”, your children know you aren’t playing close attention to them.  They will, with 100% certainty, take advantage of your blissful ignorance to their antics.  They might, quite possibly, eat mud.  To US, that seems inconceivably disgusting.  To THEM, it’s the greatest child/parenting coup of all time.  They had on brand new clothes, so hey, EXTRA YUMMY.