Mom's Prison Break

This morning, as we woke up, my wife looked at me oddly.

"I was dreaming - it was so real," she began.

"What about," I asked.

"I think I was in prison."

"Sounds like a nightmare. I'm sorry, are you okay?" I tried to be sensitive.

"We went to bed early. They gave us food. They made everyone be quiet all the time. There was a toilet right in middle of my cell," she murmured, then she looked at me and beamed, "It was wonderful!"

"Even the toilet with no privacy?" I asked as she got up to go to the bathroom.

Before she answered, my daughter zoomed into our bedroom and began banging on the bathroom door, "Mommy, mommy! I need to come in."

"I need my privacy!" my wife yelled back.

"I like your privacy too. Let me in, I want some!" my daughter yelled back.

I tried to distract my daughter, apparently she "needed" a band-aid. When I asked her to show me the wound, she couldn't - because of course she didn't have one. She is at the age where band-aids are really accessories. Her brother had come in and on hearing his sister wanted a band-aid helpfully offered to hit her so she would need a one. For a seven year old, that's a win-win.

I shooed away my son, got a piece of masking tape and drew Scooby-Doo on it. After four tries my daughter was satisfied.

When my wife came out of the bathroom she had a bemused expression. "The prison toilet was the best part. I didn't mind if they watched me - just so long as they were quiet."

I await signs of her impending crime spree. I fear that she will start a new trend that our criminal justice system is not equipped to handle.