Friday, June 8, 2007

Kids

I have three kids. My boys. They are 6, 3 and 1. Truly, I had never really known love until the first time I saw my oldest one. Kids are amazing.

My boys are funny, though. I think the best example of my kids happened about a year and a half ago.

We were hosting a foriegn exchange student. His name was Brian and he was from South Korea. He's a really great kid as well and we were blessed to have him in our house for the time that we had him.

Anyway, Brian was downstairs watching TV on a Saturday morning and my oldest decided that he was going to play a prank and get his younger brother in trouble. The baby wasn't born yet, but he was well on his way. My oldest went into Brians bedroom and found his wallet and threw everything in it all over the room.

Okay, that was step one in the master plan.

Step two was to set up the little brother. Remember, this is a 5 year old setting up his 2 year old brother.

My #2 was in their bedroom watching Polar Express with my wife. If you know nothing about my #2 know that he LOVES Polar Express. Anyway, #1 walks into the room and says "Hey #2, I want to show you something in Brians room." #2 wasn't going along with it, he wasn't leaving Polar Express, it was his favorite part, after all (The train was going over the ice covered lake, while they were trying to get back to the tracks to continue onto the north pole.)

Okay, Step 2 wasn't working out as well as he had planned. Hum, so do you think that would stop the plan? For an adult, it may have derailed them, but not for my 5 year old, he continued on the plan unabated. This let to Step #3.

Step #3, The Reveal.

He ran downstairs and said, "Brian, Brian, #2 went into your room and tore apart your wallet and threw it everywhere!"

Brian freaked out and ran upstairs. He was yelling, "#2, what did you do?!?!?!" He went into the room and saw the mess and was distressed.

My wife came out of the kids room to find out what was going on. Well, #1 started the story of how #2 went into the bedroom and tore everything apart.

This is when the holes in his plan started to fall apart. You see, #2 never left my wifes side and #1 ended up getting busted. I got involved when I got home a little later in the day. As my wife wove the story I couldn't stop laughing. Eventually I had to discipline him, and I had such a hard time doing it with a straight face, but I did it.

Turns out he wanted to be known as the "Good Boy", so if #2 where in trouble it would have made him look good. Flawed logic, but at least he had a thought process behind the chaos he created.

Don't get me wrong, all my kids are wonderful. And I think that as a parent we have to not take things too seriously, after all, there are very "kid" reasons that a kid does things. However, we also need to make sure that they understand when they have done things wrong.

Dive Deep!

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