On the Naughty List

The other day, as I was languishing in my bed feeling sick, Annalee ran upstairs and yelled, "Mommy!  Come see what Vander is doing!"  I languished more.  "What is he doing, Annalee?"  "He's breaking the red balls!"

 

Great, I thought.  All those red, ball-pit balls that are scattered around the living room are being wrecked by my son.  I was too tired to think about how a toddler could wreck them.  I was only annoyed that his sister was disturbing my languishing.

"Well," I lectured, "if you had put them away earlier when I asked you to, he wouldn't be wrecking them now."

 

"But he's breaking them!" she fretted.

 

"Then go get the bag they go in and put them away so he can't break them!" I snapped.

 

She went.  A few minutes later I heard her wail of pain.  (Mothers can distinguish the different wails.)  I reluctantly abandoned my languishing and trudged downstairs, ready to deal out punishment.  What I found was my two children sitting by the tree in a sea of broken red glass.  (This picture only shows some of the damage.)

 

 

I bought some beautiful red balls for our tree before the kids were born.  In her toddlerhood, Annalee broke one.  In 5 minutes, Vander had broken 10.  He'd grabbed his wooden hammer from a toy tool set and gone to work having the time of his life with my tree decor.  I stared, dumbfounded, for a moment.  Then I rushed to Annalee.  Thankfully, she was not bleeding, as I'd feared, but had merely been hit on the hand with the hammer.  I guess Vander hadn't liked it when she'd started to pick up pieces of shattered glass and put them in a bag.  Why?  Because I'd told her to, of course!  I felt like a great mom right then.  And I also felt like passing out.  Luckily, Nathan walked in, getting back from helping with Tithing Settlement at church.  I stumbled up the stairs and left him to handle things, which he did without complaint.  We vacuumed the living room 5 times over the next several days and yet we're STILL finding shiny little pieces in the carpet.  Amazingly, no one has stepped on any glass.  Now our tree is a little bare for about three feet up.  Boys!