Riley and Kaleb got themselves grounded last night. No friends, no TV, no movies, no computer, PlayStation, or xbox (the wii is broken - again) until further notice. I was furious. I went upstairs to go to bed last night. Kaleb was on our bed. He'd fallen asleep there (he has issues), so I texted Kurtis to come help me put him in his bed. Kurtis comes upstairs, and says, "Come here." I do, and the carpet is absolutely soaking wet in the hallway by Kaleb's bedroom door and by Riley's! So Kurtis and I wake up Riley (it's about eleven o'clock), and ask him why the carpet is so full of water. He said he and Kaleb were playing with water. "IN THE FRIGGING HALLWAY!!!?" I screamed. Apparently they thought it was the bathtub. No, not really. Of course they knew it wasn't the bathtub! We used my carpet cleaner to suck up as much of the water as we could, and put the fan on it. It was still wet in the morning, so while the baby screamed in her port-a-crib (it was her nap time anyway), I tried to suck out more. Once I turned off the cleaner, I picked her up, cuddled her a little. She didn't like me at the moment, so I put her back down, and she went right to sleep. Any way. The fans are still on the carpet, and it's getting dryer, but needless to say, I've been pretty cranky this morning. I yelled at my groggy Riley for quite a bit last night. He should know better! What are you thinking, and all that crap. Kurtis and I want them to remember this incident though. We want them to remember the punishment we inflicted on them, so they will never do this again. Ever. Kurtis came up with this: Riley gets to sit on a chair, and not get off for two hours after he is done with his homework. He can't do anything else. No reading, no getting off his chair to inspect a bug on the floor - nothing. He's gonna be so bored. Why are we being so harsh with Riley and not Kaleb? Well, Riley is older than Kaleb by a good two years. He knows better, and Kurtis and I know that if Kaleb sees Riley (or Zach) doing something they aren't supposed to, he will think it is okay. And dumping buckets of water on my carpet is not okay! We also extended his no treats in his lunch or dessert after dinner grounding for another week. I wanted it to go until Halloween with the threat of no trick-or-treating if he gave me any lip, but Kurtis thought that was a bit much. It still sounds quite reasonable to me. Especially since I didn't even touch him last night. Surprisingly, neither did Kurtis. He spanks our kids when they make him mad enough, but I hate spanking. Unless I am possessed by an angry demon or something. Besides, it usually hurts my wrist more than it hurts them at all. I onerously told Kurtis this morning, "Next time I say, 'What are they doing up there?' please go check it out." He said that I would have shrugged and said, "I don't know", too. No, I would have said, "I don't know. Go check on them."
I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining what they did. I don't really know. The evidence points to water in the small drum of their drum set (it was upside down with drips in it), there was a weebles wobble tree house in the hallway. Among other various toys that could hold water.
I'm assuming they put water in the ferriswheel on that. Maybe they ran some down the slide. When I asked Riley why they did this he gave me the same response I usually get: "Because we wanted to."
3 comments:
:( ,but thanks for letting me know what's going on since i am far away. Good luck with the consequences- I don't like giving out punishments; they always end up punishing me too if not more, but some things require it, no doubt about it. Good for you for not spanking. I typically don't, but sometimes I think for some boys that's all they need to realize what they did was wrong. When Isaac was younger the two things I did spank him for he never did again, everything else- still an issue. I know a lady who said her mother "never spanked her kids for fear she wouldn't stop" I laughed when she told me but she kind of has a point. Sunday Isaac broke a glass hurricane and William unrelated had a bloody nose (all supposed to be doing something else) and Henry asked why I was still on the computer and I said I was putting myself in time out so I wouldn't throw them all into the wall. It's not my proudest moment...but maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself- I didn't throw them into the wall. Ha
Note to Kurtis: My neighbor was having a bad day and her husband bought her roses and a card and tickets to see Wicked. Melissa has totally earned a nice surprise for dealing with this one. :)
Me again- we have that same tree house!
I have to agree with not asking. My boys' usual response? "I don't know." You don't know why you stood there and watched the three year old cut up nerf darts and his cousin's hair and didn't think maybe you ought to come get me?! I think there should be some kind of holiday where mothers of boy children get to spend the entire day at a spa free of charge to compensate us for all the crap we have to put up with.
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