He put a candy cane where???

My friend Lindsey's son speaks exclusively in Dora the Explorer speak. It is hilarious and actually also very amazing. When driving down the road he comes up with these amazing scenarios of how we need to get to the place we are going.

"You need to go through the prickly forest, over the shaky bridge and past the winding river to get to my house!"

It is so cute and shows what an imagination he has. To be honest, I'm impressed with his dedication. He can go on with it for a long time - my kids get bored of just about everything, other than making a mess, in 1.7 seconds.

The other day my son transformed himself into Swiper the Fox, a character from Dora. I was very excited about this at first because I saw all sorts of potential for his creativity and imagination. Unfortunately Swiper the Fox is a thief. He steals things from Dora and her friend, Boots the Monkey, then hides the item so they can't find it. Really - should I have been surprised this is the character with which my child would most identify?

So Z spent several days taking things out of my hand/sister's hand/random strangers hands and throwing them across the room saying "Ha Ha Ha, you'll never find it now!!!" - a direct quote from Swiper. It was sort of cute and funny (well other than snatching the random stranger's wallet) for a little while - except for the things we still cannot find. That kid has an arm on him.

There was one incident in particular that really made me put the kibosh on our resident Swiper.

My daughter had received a green and red striped candy cane from a friend at school. She was very excited about it and talked about it the entire ride home. When we walked into the house we did our usual routine which involves she and I bending over the sink and washing her hands to eliminate the Pre-K germs she acquires in a day.

Since we were not paying attention, Z snuck the candy cane out of E's school bag then walked up behind me "Ha Ha Ha" - and before I knew it uses all his 2.5 year old brute and shoved the candy cane straight down my pants and inside my underwear. "You'll never find it now" Z yelled and ran off.

Um, no, actually that candy cane was pretty easy to find...