Dad can you help me with my homework?

This would seem like a very easy and normal request, however when you add Holden into the mix, you never know what you are going to get.
"Of course I can Zane." Mean while Holden goes running down the hall. Zane starts to explain the problem he is having with his homework, when I hear the faucet in the hall bathroom turn on. Normally this would simply mean someone washing their hands right? Not with Holden, I go running down the hall in time to watch him start filling one of the bathroom draws that he has pulled out, with water.  Upon seeing me, he dumps the drawer full of water on the floor.

As I get the drawer away from Holden, Zane is calling me that he still needs my help.  I over aggressively express to Zane that he is going to have to wait as I dry the floor.  Mean while Holden is off to wage more destruction.

After cleaning up the bathroom, and locking off half the house, I proceed back to the kitchen to help Zane with his homework problem.  Once again he begins to explain what he is having problems with, insisting that he has answered the problem correctly, but that his answer does not jive with the answer sheet.

Mean while Holden has taken to the back yard, and is playing in the dirt.  I don't usually mind him playing in the dirt, it occupies him, he enjoys it, and dirt washes off. However it inevitably leads to him wanting water, to mix with the dirt, and make mud.  This poses several problems, one he will actually sample (as in taste) his chocolate milk made of dirt, water, and various other things on the ground.  Two, once muddy, he thinks it great fun to spread the mud over every surface possible, and three he often doesn't bother to ask, but rather brings some kind of container already filled with dirt into the kitchen and fills is with water, spilling it as he walks out of the kitchen back into the back yard.

So my attention is a mix of listen to Zane explain how he has done everything right, but not come up with the desired answer, while keeping an eye on Holden.  I explain to Zane that the chances of the answer sheet being wrong are probably slim, though not impossible, as Zane is very specific, and will tell me about a time 4 years earlier when the answer book was wrong, ONCE! Holden makes a break for the sliding glass door, carrying a cup full of dirt.  I head him off, while Zane starts pounding his pencil at his homework saying:

"This is right, this is right, this is right"

Zane hits his homework with his pencil, pointing out his work.  Holden makes one more dash for the house, that I cut off, and get him distracted with a few Gold Fish crackers.  Holden takes a Frisbee he has been using as a plate for his "food" that he has been making in the back yard,  dumps it on the ground and proceeds to pour his Gold Fish into the Frisbee, grabs a plank of wood, sets it on a Tonka truck and makes his make shift table.  While he drags a chair over, I make a dash for Zane and his homework problem.

I finally get to reading the math word problem out loud, as I am reading them Zane exclaims!

"Oh, you are supposed to subtract, not add." and grabs the homework back from me and fixes his own mistake.  At which point I want to punt his little ass out the window, but instead, say :

"Good job buddy, way to find your own mistake, next time read the problem thoroughly, okay bud."

"Thanks dad, I love you."

And with those words, all is good again.