Early on I have tried to instill self-monitoring in my children. This is to say, I'm too lazy to get off the couch and stop their poor behavior. Often I will say, "It seems like a bad idea"... instead of outright saying "NO" or "I'll go get your father if you don't stop that." And like most brothers, these guys have had their fair share of Bad Ideas.
Hiding a Christmas stocking full of candy under a couch cushion is clearly a bad idea. If you are going to be sneaky, you should hide candy somewhere where it is actually hidden. I would suggest in your room. The couch is too public a place and the raised up cushion is just too obvious. On the off chance that someone will sit down anyway, you are also running the risk of melted chocolate and broken candy canes. Bad Idea.
Cutting your own hair to make a reverse mohawk is also a bad idea. If you are in the mood to cut hair, instead of practicing on your own, I would suggest cutting your little brother's hair instead. It's not such a big deal for a baby to have a bad haircut... but a Kindergartner? Now that's just uncool. What's worse, your mom might find your bad haircut hilarious and make you suffer by not getting you a real haircut for 2 weeks after the bad cut. Then you will have to walk around with the middle part of your bangs cut to the scalp while the rest of your bangs cover your eyes. I do appreciate that you used kiddie scissors but... Bad Idea.
For some reason the kids really do think our couches are jungle gyms. They like to run across the cushions and really have no preference for the cushions being on the couch or on the floor. Either way, they leap to and fro. They make loops around the living room. Despite many pleas and shouts from parents, part of this loop involves a drop from the arm of the sofa to the floor. This is not expensive furniture and there are obvious concerns over the wood frame breaking but I'm more concerned with the possible broken necks as they slide from the arm to the floor. Inevitably someone ends up on top of someone else and there there is the obligatory crying. Bad Idea.
Lollipops are great parenting strategies... or tools... or whatever you want to call them. Lollipops can persuade a child to sit quietly while Mommy and Daddy go holiday shopping. They can reward someone for calmly sitting to get their hair cut (to correct their mistake with kiddie scissors). Lollipops are a great treat, it's true, but walking around with a lollipop in your hand and not eating it right away... is not such a great idea. Give it some time, you will drop the lollipop and it will be covered in hair from the hair salon's waiting room carpet. That's why, if Mommy gives you a lollipop, you should enjoy it right away instead of walking around with it. That's a Bad Idea.
This shouldn't surprise me. When Bill and his brothers were little I hear they rode down the stairs in a laundry basket. Bad Idea. He also washed a car... with charcoal lighter fluid. Bad Idea. While Bill was learning life lessons, I was too. I learned that if I thought it was fun to jump in the town sandpit barefoot, there were just as many people who found it fun to drink and throw bottles in that same sandpit and that I was bound to land barefoot onto one of those broken bottles. Bad Idea. No, it really shouldn't surprise me. I once cut my bangs too after all... right to the scalp... when I was in middle school. As if I wasn't enough of a dork in middle school, I had to wear a thick elastic headband for several weeks until it was presentable (actually it still wasn't presentable a couple of weeks later, but I was a dork anyway so it wasn't that big a deal... plus this was back in the day when curling and spraying bangs was the norm). Anyway, I agree about cutting hair. It's a Bad Idea.
Bad Ideas seem about as inevitable as toothpaste on the bathroom counter. They're just going to happen. You can warn against them, but some life lessons need to be learned on their own.
Sometimes you need to learn lessons the hard way. I suppose I learn lessons from my own Bad Ideas each and every day. I don't try to cut my own hair anymore and I've completely stopped having fun in a dare-devilish way. I don't remember the last time I saw Bill coast down the stairs in a laundry basket. Here's to hoping that next time Joshua gets a lollipop, he'll just enjoy it right away instead of coveting and then dropping it. And here's to hoping that Liam will not cut his own hair again... or Joshua's for that matter. And as for the Christmas stocking... seriously Liam, find a better hiding spot.
No comments:
Post a Comment