Yesterday I sort of shot myself in the foot.

We were at the store and Logan had $1 to spend. He found a purple plastic recorder for 88¢.

I encouraged him to get it because he’s always using his sisters’ recorders, which makes them very angry. They don’t want his germy little mouth anywhere near their stuff. (Sound familiar?)

“Then I can have my OWN flute!” he said.

“Let’s get it, then,” I agreed.

All was well and good.

Until this morning.

At what I consider the unnecessarily early hour of 6:30, I awoke to the “flute” being played right by my head. A rather unpleasant wake-up call for the entire household.

Dumb, Sarah, dumb.

After four kids, shouldn’t I know better than that? What did I expect?

Now, too late, I remember why the girls’ recorders mysteriously disappeared for a time shortly after their receipt. Rachel and Andie were much younger then and since the novelty of the sound hadn’t worn off for what seemed like far too long, the offending instruments made a semi-permanent home on top of our very tall bookshelf.

This little purple gem may go missing soon as well. If Logan continues to get up before everyone else in his excitement to help us greet the morning with his version of music, it just might find housing on the same bookshelf top.

Now if only the overly large, and therefore unable to be hidden, baritone Rachel has just started learning to play came with a mute button . . .

What are some of your kids’ most annoying toys and why? Do you ever resort to hiding them?

Tags: child, children, family, kid, kids, mom, mother, noise, parent, parenting, parents, recorder, toy