At least he does it for a reason.

So my son thought it would be a nice surprise if Mom and Dad woke up to a clean fireplace.

That's right.

Eric woke up to the smell of burning plastic.

I want to precede this with this: lately, because Eric and I are absolutely beyond tired, the kids have taken to getting up, putting on a movie; Jason makes everyone breakfast, and they chill until Eric gets out of his shower. Neither one of us is really certain when they wake up some mornings.

It's been good. I mean, make your own breakfast, don't wake us up - yay!

Except this morning.

We just recently started using our fireplace. It's awesome (read: cheap) and the kids get such a kick out of the thing. We've tried to beat it into the kids' brains that you do not touch the fireplace nor anything within the fireplace.

We've used reason.

We've used threats.

You just don't touch the damn thing!

But Jason, like he tells me often these days, does stuff "for a reason!" We think him making breakfast for everyone makes him think he's the man of the house. He likes to be a big guy. He likes being "the boss."

(Really quick: be careful if you ever try telling your kid he's the boss of himself. That doesn't really jive with little kid logic.)

So this morning he decides that he's going to clean out the fireplace. The coals are still hot. Red. Yeah. Mostly out, but we all know how firefighters are always looking for even the slightest red coal in the ashes after a fire, right? Right.

He takes the shovel, opens the door, and shovels out the ash, carries it across the living room and then throws it into the trash can.

You know, just your standard trash can fire.

Sigh.