"You!" Gillian pointed to Owen, who was jumping on his bed. "Sit down right now!" He did with a plop.
"Mum, Owen was flinging his poo at me!" Lewis complained.

"You sit down too," Gillian signed angrily, pointed at the ground viciously. They were both jumping on their beds, throwing something a lot heavier than poop because the combined noise of thumping and thudding is what had drawn Gillian upstairs in the first place.

Lewis lowered himself more carefully to his backside, watching her intently, slightly defiantly. His bed was a mess of sheets and there were toys strewn typically all over the floor. Often, there were toys on the floor, but that was only if there was a game set up and it had to be to one side, so the boys' parents could move around the room without breaking their necks. Plus, it taught them to clean up after themselves. But this resembled a bombsite.

"What is going on?" Gillian asked, her hands in angry curves as she directed the question to Lewis.

"Owen was throwing his poo at me." He placed his thumb over the fingernail of his index and middle finger and moved them out to make an 'H' hand shape. Then gripped his left fist around his right thumb and pulled the right hand down again. His face was disgusted.

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Lewis responded annoyed.

Knowing Owen, he had probably merely taken it upon himself now that he knew how to undo his diaper. Sometimes though, he was provoked or encouraged.

"Mum," Owen started.

Gillian held out a hand to stop him.

"But."

Gillian shoved the hand at him again, her attention on Lewis. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Lewis pouted. He formed his hand into a zero.

And Gillian believed him. His face and body language was telling her that Owen had started this particular incident. "Owen," she turned to him. "Sit up."He was rolling around on his mattress, kicking his feet against the wall. He was still in the crib even though it had been modified because he was older, the base lowered closer to the floor, the bars taken down. They were about to get upgraded to bunks but that wasn't license to trash their current beds. Owen looked at her upside down, a smile on his face.

"Sit up," Gillian repeated firmly. Owen slowly turned over. He was two years and a few months and working towards potty training but he was trouble. He had figured out how to unstick the tabs on his diaper months ago, Gillian suspected Cal had shown him, he tended to do stupid things like that, and Owen's new favourite party trick was to take it off, as well as most of his clothes, and run around the house naked. If there was a tidy little surprise in there then it was an extra bonus and this was not the first time Owen had been caught flinging his own excrement. The first time, Lewis had encouraged it.

Also stupid.

When Owen was sitting on his knees Gillian approached and gingerly sat on the edge of his also messy bed keep her weight mostly on her legs; she better not be sitting in anything. Owen watched her expectantly. He had managed to get one arm out of his shirt, but otherwise had no other clothes on. "Owen," Gillian started. "You know you're not meant to take your diaper off."

"I go toilet," he responded, making a 'T' hand and shaking it back and forth.

"Then you go to the toilet," Gillian told him firmly. "And you do not throw poo around the room!" Owen jigged where he sat and raised his arms in the air, giving a little grin, clearly, still finding it amusing. "What punishment do you think you should have?" She raised her left arm in the air, her hand a fist, and ran her index finger of her right hand from the elbow, beneath her arm, rapidly towards her hand and back again.

"No," Owen shook his head, the smile fading a little.

"Yes," Gillian nodded. "I think no TV the rest of today and all of tomorrow."

"No!" Owen crowed, his face clouding.

"Yes," Gillian confirmed and stood again. "Where did it land?" She asked her elder son. He pointed wordlessly towards the floor while Owen let out a scream that his mother ignored; she couldn't see anything where Lewis was pointing. She felt a hand or foot or something connect with the back of her leg and she turned slowly to regard Owen, her gaze heavy, her face angry and he cowered back, knowing he had pushed the line. "Do you want to make it two days?"

Owen pouted at her.

"Then you don't hit me," Gillian ground out, shaking her head, raising the index of her left hand and smacking it with her right fist. She turned back to Lewis. "Get some toilet paper and pick it up." She gestured her palms towards each other.

"Why me?" He curled his hands up in front of him and shrugged his shoulders.

"It's your room," Gillian shot back. "Or do you want to sleep with poo in here?" She brushed her hand down her face, so her fingers grouped together, then added 'poo'.

Lewis pouted this time, but he knew better than to argue, especially if he had somehow been involved.

"You can both do it." She signed 'together'. "And I'll be back in ten minutes to check on you."