Tips on how not to parent!

The day before Christmas, I almost gave Jason away. It seems like every time I turned around, he was creating chaos. I honestly could not leave him alone for more than a minute without him making a mess. I managed to document a couple of his mishaps, but, believe me, there were more! I don't know if he was just bored, tired of being cooped up, or was excited about Christmas, but, we haven't had a day like this for a long time, nor (thankfully) have we had one since!

It all started that morning. I was upstairs showering. I left Isaac in charge (which usually works out great) but I made the mistake of telling him that he could play video games while I was upstairs. What was I thinking? This child is exactly like his father, and almost every other male I have met. If he is playing video games or watching something on TV, he magically has the power of tuning out everything and everyone around him. This is what I came downstairs to find:

I had just bought this box of Cheerios two days earlier. To make matters worse, when I asked them to turn off the TV and clean up, Jason started to jump, yes, jump on them! Not only were there Cheerios on the floor, there were Cheerios ground INTO the floor. I finally gave up and pulled out the vacuum, all the while lecturing Isaac and Adam for not watching their brother and telling Jason that he owed me 4 dollars. As if he had any idea what I was talking about. Excellent parenting!

So, I fed the kids breakfast and put them in the tub. Jason made a mess in there too. I got them out, and was checking Isaac's teeth after he brushed when I heard Jason down in the kitchen. He was supposed to be in his room getting dressed. I called to him and told him to come back upstairs. When he came marching into the bathroom, he said, "Mom, I spilled your dient (that's how he says it) coke". I went downstairs with him and this is what I found:

Juice spilled all over the floor, splashed all over the walls and doors, and a nice trail of wet sticky footprints leading out of the kitchen. Not only did he spill, he decided to step in it and play for a while before coming upstairs. I sent him up to get dressed while I cleaned up and then mopped the kitchen. He did, but only after emptying all of the clean clothes out of his drawers and throwing all of the clothes that were in a pile in my room (waiting to be folded) all over the place.

Finally, it was nap time. The boys had eaten lunch, cleaned up the toy room, helped with some chores, and played for a while. I told them to all go to the bathroom and then get in their beds, and that I would be up to tuck them in in just a minute. I had just finished putting some dishes in the dishwasher when I heard Isaac upstairs yelling. I went up to see what was going on.

Can you guess who Isaac might have been yelling at? Apparently Jason filled up a glass of water in the bathroom, took it into the boys room, and dumped (not spilled, it wasn't an accident), he dumped the whole glass of water on Isaac's bed. Why? Seriously, why?

After nap time, we were gone all night so Jason was pretty good. (Although, after about 10 minutes straight of listening to his jokes in the car we were all starting to go a little crazy. In case you haven't heard any of them, here are some samples of Jason's jokes: Mom, why did the chicken go to the store? I don't know Jason, why? Because he wanted to jump on his head! Ha ha ha- we all have to fake laugh. Mom, knock knock. Who's there Jason? Elephant feet. Elephant feet who? Bananas. Ha ha ha- more fake laughing followed by another joke. and another. and another....). When we got home, we tried to do all of our usual Christmas Eve traditions, but, Jason was so hyper, he wouldn't sit still for anything. Chris was reading and he was bouncing off the walls. We finally gave up and told them that it was time to get ready for bed. Chris started getting their tooth brushes ready, and I went in to change the towels on Isaac's bed (remember the water). For some reason Chris left the bathroom. When I went in, there was Jason. He had pulled out ALL of the floss from the container.

It was all over the floor and the counter. Incidentally, that was a brand new thing of floss as well. Now he owes me at least $7, maybe more, because I didn't really count the juice.

The benefit to all of this? I did get the house cleaned for Christmas. I vacuumed the living room because of the Cheerios and then figured I might as well do the upstairs while I had the vacuum out. I swept and mopped the kitchen floor because of the juice. I cleaned the bathroom after bath time because there was water all over the mirror, walls, and floor (and Isaac was nice enough to clean the toilets for me). I had a pile of laundry on my floor that Jason threw all over my room because he was looking for his transformers underwear after bath time. It motivated me to finally sit down with the boys and we all sorted, folded, and put away the laundry. So, maybe I should be thanking Jason, in a round about way, for helping me get ready for Christmas! Rather, I thanked him and everyone else that night for actually staying in bed and going to sleep so that Chris and I could have a few minutes of peace and quiet to sit and enjoy our clean house!