Today was supposed to be a low-key, quiet, even lazy day. All I had on the agenda was teaching my preschool PSR class at church at 10:00. My friend came over to watch the dudes for me, and brought her dudes...all the dudes are great pals. Piece of cake.
So I taught my class, stopped for milk and a spur-of-the-moment video rental, and came home. All excited for my lazy afternoon of sweatpants, finishing the Christmas tree, and rented movies. I told the kids that we weren't going anywhere for the rest of the day and we were going to be L-A-Z-Y. And the oldest mutt looked at me with sad eyes and said, "So we're not going to the concert tonight?"
Concert?
Oh yeah! Christmas in Warren County! Where the St F children's choir (of which oldest mutt is a member) is singing! Tonight!
There went my lazy afternoon. Now we had to rush to finish lunch, the tree, showers, dinner, and getting dressed up in concert attire. Meaning a tie for him. He doesn't like ties. And the poor guy looked like he was wearing his dad's tie...I was afraid it was too long on him, although more than one of my friends assured me he looked very handsome.
In the midst of the rushing, I went down to the basement to put away the totes that we keep the Christmas stuff in, and noticed a lot of small colorful fibers in the carpet, that are not supposed to be there. Not part of the pattern. It's beige carpet, there is no pattern. I asked the dudes what it was, and it was apparently all that was left of my silly sombrero hat, that oldest dude and his friend had decided to shred because it was "part of their game." Shredded. An. Item. That. Did. Not. Belong. To. Them.
I don't care about the sombrero....got it at a party a year or so ago, and didn't throw it away. The kids found it and wanted to play with it, so it was in the basement. I DO care that they were perfectly ok with destroying something that did not belong to them, and I DO care about the giant mess they made, and didn't feel compelled to clean up. So I made the oldest dude clean it up. By himself. By the time I saw the mess, his accomplice was long gone. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the size of the job, and I honestly felt kind of bad making him do it all. But....there is a lesson to be learned in that mess. Don't let your friends encourage you to do something you know is wrong and/or destructive. Don't let your friends leave without helping to clean up the mess they've helped make. And failing those two things, don't let your mom stumble across said mess when she's rushing around trying to get 47 other things done....tell her about it. Or better yet, clean it up without being asked. Or told. Or yelled at. How many times does a child need to hear things before they start to become ingrained, even a little? Rhetorical question....no one knows the answer, because there is no answer. Adam and Eve are still waiting for their kids to figure it out.
I'm glad we went to the concert. The music was beautiful and really got me feeling the Christmas spirit. The kids sounded wonderful. We only made it through about half of it though, because the littlest dude was getting very whiny and wanted to go home, and it was kind of late for a school night. But it was really, really nice.
That mountain of laundry that I was avoiding the other day, has sadly not disappeared, in spite of my fervent wishing and resourceful avoidance. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate folding laundry? Maybe I'll watch Twilight while I fold.
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