My sweet husband took the kids over to his dad's house today for a little visit, leaving me to my own devices for about an hour and a half. I had a good time doing a few loads of laundry and catching up on Facebook - anything can feel like a good time to a mother who needs an hour to herself (and I'm not talking about 11:00 at night when everyone's asleep).
About 4:30 they all came tumbling back into the house and immediately went into the boys' room to play until I got dinner ready. At one point, I watched J run through the kitchen, frantically open the back door, and laugh as he headed outside. I chuckled to myself when I realized he forgot to unlock the doorknob, and readily jumped up when I heard the expected knock.
To my surprise both my boys came walking in. My mind quickly ran over his lack of coat, socks and shoes, all the while recognizing precisely how he managed to get outside.
He'd jumped out his bedroom window.
I - was - furious! He was immediately placed in the corner while the other two were ordered to start cleaning up the bedroom. None of them would get dinner until the job was complete. After an appropriate amount of time I called B into the kitchen to tell me precisely why he thought going out the window was a good idea.
"The glitter fell out and J and I wanted to race to get it and M told me it would be faster if I went out the window so I did."
Makes perfect sense, right? It apparently made sense to him. We had a serious talk about what could have happened: limbs could have been broken, he didn't even have shoes on, he could have fallen on his head, and the screen is now busted. We then went into the bedroom to have the same talk with the other two (M especially, as the oldest), and so he could help finish cleaning the bedroom.
I am emotionally exhausted from it all. I don't like getting mean with the kids. I hate feeling so angry about such dumb decisions. I get scared wondering what they'll think of when they're teenagers! But they all still know I love them. And I'm pretty sure they all still love me. We read together so I could regain composure and assurance that I am, in fact, a good mommy.
It took about twenty minutes for them to come in for dinner, but I think there was a big lesson learned. Don't let Mom find out you jumped out the window!
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4 comments:
Look at it this way - now you know they know how to escape and can put up bars or some other barricade before they get the idea to sneak out at night. :)
I use to jump out my bedroom window all the time as a child and that was on the second floor of the house. Look at me I turned out fine ;) I'm even scared of heights now. Serves right, huh?
I too had an emotionally exhausting day over the weekend on Saturday. Mine started with a 30 minute discussion-turned not, with all family members about chores...following it, no one actually did what we just talked about AND THAT WAS IT for me. I cried a lot that day and felt all kinds of emotions (not to mention it was PMS too). Yuck. Glad it's Monday morning,I always like a new week.
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