If You Give a Kid a Sledgehammer...

...you will make her very, very, VERY happy. Especially if, after you have handed her the sledgehammer, you point her toward her old bedroom wall and tell her to "have at it." Bug delightedly complied.She lined up her first shot quite carefully, did an experimental tap-tap on the sheetrock with her hammer, then turned to me to say, "Whatever you do, don't show these pictures to Grandpa. He would FREAK OUT." Then she took a mighty swing and buried the head of the hammer in the wall with a resounding ker-CHUNK.

(Hi, Grandpa! Look! She's wearing safety glasses and leather gloves! It's all cool).
She was slightly proud.
After her first success, she caught on quickly and happily moved from room to room leaving sanctioned destruction in her wake.

Within thirty minutes, her old room looked like this as Tom reached into the holes made by Bug and pulled down the old wallboard:

By the end of the day, he had finished with walls and was pulling up the flooring. Light switches dangled whimsically from the ceiling by their cords. The newly exposed subfloor showed evidence of old water damage not disclosed to us by the previous owners.

Supposedly this whole space is going to be a beautiful living room with bamboo flooring in one month's time. At this point, I'm taking the contractor's word for it and trying not to hyperventilate.

Later in the day, I walked into the house to discover that Tom's parenting philosophy apparently involves allowing the preteen to use power tools. (extreme ennui courtesy of preteen spotting me with a camera). It was one of those mothering moments where you just keep on walking and think determinedly about fluffy bunnies and pretty flowers and not at all about severed fingers or trips to the emergency room.