This afternoon I walked into the bathroom and found a little brown gift on the toilet seat. Being of sound constitution and having years of mommy experience I did not react to this as one might, I merely summoned the children.
“Who used this bathroom last?”, asked I.
“Not me!”, said the girl.
“Wasn’t me.”, mumbled the elder son.
“I used the other bathroom.”, said the younger boy.
“I’m serious guys, who used this bathroom? I’m not cleaning this up.”
You could have heard crickets chirping….
“This is stupid,” said elder son, “I’ll just clean it up…”.
And clean it up he did. Scrub, wipe, disinfect, toss it in the pot.
I sighed a bit that he couldn’t flush the toilet but elected to choose my battles. So I flushed. And the sucker over-flowed like you would not even believe.
I’ll admit it, I flipped out a bit. I may have cussed. I’m sure I hollered. There I was in my sock feet fighting a flood caused by too much tp and an apparent inability on the part of my children to say, “Hey Ma, the toilet’s not flushing right…”
I got the sucker unclogged and went downstairs.
“Okay, seriously, who used the upstairs bathroom last?”
Another round of not me’s followed so I sent all three of them to bed… “Until someone can be honest everyone’s getting punished. Go!”
They trudged up whimpering and hollering and I slammed around in the kitchen (I know, I know, not one of my better moments).
About 10 minutes later the man walks in. I tell him not to go in the upstairs bathroom and tell him why as I continue to slam pots and pans around in the kitchen.
“Um,” says he, nodding toward the stairs, “Someone up there is trying to get your attention.”
At the bottom of the steps I holler up, “What? Who’s calling me and what do you want?”
Out of his room trundles the youngest child. With big blue eyes full of tears and snuffling all the while he says, “It was me. I did it.”
“Anna!” I shouted, “Sean! You can come down!”
“You, little boy,” I said to Andrew, “Are going to clean up that mess. Then I’m going to make you a sandwich for dinner, you’re going to take your shower and you’re going straight to bed.”
So I smacked a PB&J together while the man supervised the bathroom clean-up. There was a great deal of whimpering and wailing on Drew’s part but eventually he finished to the man’s standards. He moped his way downstairs, ate a pitiful dinner of PB&J and a yogurt, then went up and took his shower and was in bed by six.
I try really hard not to be a mean mom. I let them watch tv, they have video games and play on the computer. They can go out and play with their friends, go over their friend’s houses and have their friends over here. But so help me, I will not be lied to.
I abhor lying.
I know I probably over-did it on the punishment. I know he’s only eight. I know he suffers from youngest child syndrome. But seriously…
A lie about something little and brown is still a lie.
