As a full time mother, I often feel rather rumpled, trampled, and taken for granted. I don't expect my three small children to appreciate or even notice all of my various efforts to carve a home out of our house. Moms don't serve for recognition! Regardless of their intent, the kids' actions often translate to feelings of invisibility/futility in my head. For example, inevitably right after I wipe the counters someone gets out a crumby piece of bread and walks around with it, decorating every flat surface with crumbs. That makes my work feel futile and mySELF feel like an slave whose only purpose is to follow people around wiping up their crumbs. Our kids have never maliciously tried to make my life harder, even if their numerous messes, accidents, games, and actions can be difficult to handle. I have to believe that at ages 7, 5, and 1.5, our kids are not actively trying to thwart their parents; they are simply learning and experiencing life.
Screeeech! Crash. Crunch. That's the sound of my crumbling ideals. Sunday night, Jay and Rose had their last sibling sleepover of summer break. They are the cutest brother-sister best friends of all time [usually], and Sunday night was no exception. They giggled and read and snuggled up in Jay's big bed together. I turned off the light at 8pm (sleepover bedtime is more generous than regular bedtime) and went downstairs to hang out with Jeff. While we were in the basement, we heard some sounds of giggling and tiptoeing, but when Jeff checked on the kids, all was quiet, so we let it go. When I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water before bed, however, I noticed a cabinet door was ajar and seemed to be dusted in white fingerprints. Closer examination revealed that the cornstarch jar had been dumped into the salt jar and the labeled jar lids had been switched. I thought "nice try, kids" and felt a little peeved that they snuck out of their bed after lights out time.
Monday morning I informed Jay and Rose that since they were out of bed messing around in the kitchen after hours, their screen privileges were revoked for the day. They calmly accepted their punishment as if they were expecting it and had planned for it while they were playing their prank. I don't want to make my kids' life totally awful when I'm punishing them, but a little remorse goes a long way to boost my mood when I'm dishing out punishments! Remorse makes me feel that the punishment is worthwhile and effective.
Fast forward to Monday evening: the kids had picked up the toys (with minimal grumbling) so I could do a quick vacuum before dinner (summertime in this valley equals large quantities of dust tracked into the carpet repeatedly). I was able to vacuum right before dinner because I had two meals' worth of leftover chicken, black beans, and rice in the fridge, already made. While I vacuumed, I thought how glad I was not to have to cook dinner that night. Instead I could use the time catching up on some much-needed carpet care. It is a rare feeling to be able to cook nothing and still have a hot homemade dinner in minutes, and I always revel in the ease of leftovers nights.
Screeeeech! Crash! Crunch! When we were heating up the leftovers, Jay and Rose confessed that their prank from the previous night had another prong. They had dumped vanilla extract all over both the chicken and my deliciously seasoned homemade black beans! Half of our Costco sized bottle of vanilla extract was gone and the chicken and beans were completely inedible, having been marinated in vanilla-scented alcohol for nearly 24 hours. Two healthy, yummy, homemade dinners: WASTED. RIPPED FROM MY BOSOM. The injustice of that reality combined with the malicious intent behind the kids' actions left me feeling completely and utterly betrayed. SABOTAGED! Jeff gave the kids plain rice (the only part of the meal that was still edible) for dinner and after a brief effort, I left the kitchen to go cry in my room.
It's no secret in our house that Jay and Rose do not like beans. They relished the act of destroying the hated beans, and the chicken for good measure. The muffled laughter we heard from the basement the night before attests to that! I just couldn't believe that they went so far. I had no clue what to do about it. I was too busy processing the feeling of trampled betrayal to figure out a suitable punishment! This was all compounded by my utter exhaustion from running 40 miles last week. It is a whole lot of work, planning meals, shopping for groceries, loading and unloading food from the car, and "charming it into something edible" as Hermione Granger described cooking. Cooking is especially uninspiring to me during the hot summer months when the rest of my family is playing/lounging and I have to go dream up dinner for them. It is a thankless task and I am rarely thanked for doing it, as much as I try to teach the little humans gratitude. It's one thing when they don't like what I cook, but when they sabotaged the meal for everyone else in the family this week, I felt defeated in every way. And I was still hungry. I said a prayer for patience, wiped my tears, lifted my sword and shield, and dashed back into the fray.
In a sad, serious voice, I expounded these thoughts to the kids, and for once they had the decency to exhibit a little remorse. We canceled all screens for the rest of the week and the kids are not allowed to get food out in the kitchen without parental supervision. For good measure, I also took away Jay's collection of Calvin and Hobbes, Captain Underpants, and Baby Blues comics--all sources of his pranking inspiration. Jeff made himself a giant bacon and egg omelet for dinner (while I did my best to suppress thoughts like "First no real dinner and now the smell of bacon seeping through the house? Yuck! This night is going from bad to worse!"). I thawed one of my bean burgers that I keep on hand and halfheartedly ate that for dinner.
The mood in our house was heavy and grave. I felt heavy and grave. I remembered the discipline model outlined in the scriptures, about reproving and then afterwards showing an increase of love. I was still feeling emotionally raw and not very forgiving, but I knew that I couldn't put my kids to bed without showing them that they were still loved in spite of their actions. So I swallowed my hurt and we had story time. It was just what we needed. Story time has always been such a cozy together time, and we haven't been reading aloud much this summer so it felt extra good. As I read the first two chapters of Shredderman [by Wendelin Van Draanen] aloud to my kids, I felt my heart soften and forgiveness came. We didn't cancel the prescribed punishments, but I felt peace about the whole mess at last, and I think Jay and Rose did too.
Maybe someday I'll look back at this and laugh. Someday something even bigger and harder will happen. This was minuscule compared to what's coming, I'm sure! It just felt big to me and big moments make me ponder and wonder and worry and hope. Mostly I hope that no matter what happens, I can always snuggle up with my kids afterwards and make sure they know how much I love them. No matter what.
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