For all the people who think my kids are perfect....

You are absolutely right!

However, every once and a blue moon, one of my children will somehow do the most random, inappropriate thing that makes me think..."Who is this kid?"

Take today for instance. I had the most perfect day. Asher is feeling much better, he is loving and sweet, quiet and happy. Back to his old self. I spent my morning skyping with my sweet cousin which is like a virtual play date. It is fabulous because I get to talk to someone I love, but I also get to do it without worrying about my hair or makeup. :)

After I picked up Izzy from school and we ate lunch, the boys played quietly all day and entertained themselves without interruption. It was completely lovely. I accomplished so much today I couldn't believe it. They went down at 2 for a nap without a peep and I worked away until 4:30 when I heard Asher wake. Then it happened. The random, what the heck moment....

Izzy came in happy and skipping but in a totally different outfit than I put him to nap in. Makes a Mom wonder. So I asked him and he said, "I just felt like having different shorts." Sounds reasonable. I go into his bedroom just to make sure everything is on the up and up and find a pair of socks completely soaked lying on the floor. When I confronted him about the socks and why he really changed his clothes, that is when he went all wishy-washy on me. Cut to 10 minutes later when I am trying to piece the truth together. He tells me he woke up from nap, pottied and then played in the sink and that is why his socks are wet. Doesn't make sense does it? I walk into the bathroom and find a huge trail of pee water from the toilet to the door of the bathroom. I turn to give him "the look" and he turned purple and sobbed so hysterically he couldn't be understood. I told him to spill it and finally I got the real story. Apparently, he got up from nap early (breaking a rule) went to the potty, didn't flush and instead took off his sock and put them in the toilet. Why? He just wanted to see what would happen. But, it doesn't stop there. He goes into his closet get his socks from yesterday and puts them in there too. I guess then after seeing that nothing really does happen to socks sitting in pee, he decides he better take them out and clean himself up. He obviously will not make a good criminal (Thank God!) because he left the evidence in the middle of his bedroom floor. 4 pee socks, a shirt wet to the shoulder and a dirty towel.

Mommy=LIVID.

I realize how much work I had ahead of me. Clean the carpet, clean the entire bathroom, another load of laundry, clean Izzy and all of the punishment that the child had coming his way. First things first, Izzy needed a shower. I open the shower curtain to find he had opened a brand new shampoo bottle and poured it out directly into the bathtub leaving a huge blue puddle. Are you kidding me! I turn around to see him literally melt in front of me. He told me the truth that he had done all of it at the same time. I decided to get a roll of paper towels and make him clean his mess up. So he wiped up the mess on the floor and cried and apologized the whole time. Then he got in the shower and cleaned himself up while sobbing. I scrubbed the bathroom clean, threw in the laundry, cleaned up the rest of the mess and decided the punishment. I decided he would be grounded to his room for the rest of the night and not allowed to speak or leave his room even for dinner. Needless to say, he was devastated. It has only happened once or twice before, but it is the worst punishment he can get. He requires connection to people and to have to sit in a room and think about what he has done and listen to all of the fun he is missing out on...too much for him. I also decided that he will take money out of his piggy bank that he saves like Scrooge, and make him buy a new shampoo. At one point, he knocked on the door to ask permission to use the bathroom. I looked inside his room and he had cleaned his room perfectly. It was really hard to not let him out of his punishment early because he was taking it like he should have and he so obviously understood what he did. I stood my ground though, brought him his dinner to his room and he promised he would knock on the door when he was done. After his dinner, I went in his room to talk about what happened and why he got into so much trouble and make sure he understand what exactly I was so upset with and he understood exactly.

This is our convo verbatim:
Me-"Izzy, Mommy is very disappointed in your behavior today. You broke lots of rules and you did things that you clearly know are wrong. Can you tell Mommy why you think you got punished?"
Izzy-"I know just what I did. Ok. #1-I lied to you. #2-I played in the toilet and that is gross because there are yucky germs. #3-I put my socks in there to see what would happen and clothes don't go in toilets. #4-I played in the sink. #5-I put my pee socks on the carpet and now you have to do lots of work. #6-I wasted a shampoo and that is not for playing.

It was really nice to hear, without prompting that he knew step by step what he did wrong. It also makes it even more frustrating because he KNOWS better. He is 4, but he is like 50. He is so responsible and mature for his age, so when he does age appropriate things it just blows my mind! As a baby, he never did a single thing baby like. Never broke a single thing, never wrote on anything that wasn't paper, never touched things that were off limits, followed rules, didn't hit, bite, throw tantrums, nothing. He is and always has been consistently obedient. With that kind of history, it is so confusing as to why at 4 you would decide to find out what happens when you put things in the toilet. What is that about? Marcus and I talked about it and all we could do is laugh because that is totally how his brain works. He loves to figure things out. But what is intriguing about urine? I hope my kid is not the only one who found this to be interesting.

Izzy and I spent some quality time together talking and to sum it up, Daddy gave him some good wisdom to live by. If you are about to make a choice before you do it you should think to yourself, Would this make my Mommy and Daddy proud of me or sad? Izzy wanted to give us examples from his school day and then he told me "Mommy, I don't copy people. Copying people only gets you into trouble. Well, you can copy the girls in my class, because they never do anything bad." :)

We ended the night with a bedtime prayer and our 5's. I told him 5 character qualities about him that I really admire and I told him that no matter what silly things he does and no matter how angry I may be for the moment, I love him more than this whole world. He held my hand and said in a shaky voice "Mommy, I am so sorry that I did that today. I am so sorry that I didn't make you proud." How can you stay mad? I couldn't have been more frustrated while cleaning that bathroom, doing the laundry, cleaning the carpets all when I should have been making dinner, but this one incident brought out a lot of lessons. Self-control, honesty, wasting, obedience, and responsibility.

Leave it to my Dad to give me a reality check and remind me that most young boys do these kinds of things on a daily basis and I am quite blessed to only have to clean up silly messes a couple of times in four years. A quick reminder of my brother at Izzy's age, and I just wanted to run in and kiss him 1 billion times.

When my brother was 3, he had a problem with sleep walking. My parents had just put in new cream carpet throughout the house. One night, my brother walked into the kitchen dumped a dozen eggs on the floor, and took out the Hersheys syrup. He drank some and then carried the bottle upside down from the kitchen, through the living room, hallway, into his room and in his bed, then my parents bed and then falling asleep with me. When we woke up, we were stuck to the sheets, covered in sticky chocolate syrup and our carpets were left with a messy chocolate trail identifying all of his sleepwalking adventures.

So really...whats a little pee? :)