Young Felon

My 8 year old son is a bright, beautiful soul. When I was pregnant, we were very sure that we were going to have another daughter. After all, I am the eldest of 5 girls and we already had two daughters. Her name was to be Isabelle. When he was born I can remember asking the midwife, "What the hell is that thing between her legs"? We changed his name to Joshua and life has not been the same since. Before he joined our family, I was very arrogant in my belief that I knew how to be a good mother. My son quickly taught me that I was clueless. He has also brought an inordinate amount of joy and laughter to my life. He is not an "easy" child. I firmly believe that he was sent to me for a reason. One of them was to humble my ass. The most important was to stretch and challenge me as a human being. In the last 24 hours I have been stretched so much that I am sore.

Crime Number One:
I took the kids out to dinner last night. A very rare event considering the amount of food that they can put away when they are hungry. I had cash, yes, cash in my wallet as I had worked this week. (I am a postpartum doula.) When I paid for dinner I noticed that I was missing some money. I searched my brain, but could not figure out how I had spent the better part of $100 in just 2 days. In the car on the way home I asked my children if anyone had taken any money from my wallet. All 4 of them emphatically denied it. I had a hard time imagining my children taking my money so I let it drop. I chalked it up to wine induced memory loss.

As the kids were getting ready for bed, my 11 year handed me a $20 bill. She had found it on her bedside table. After some intense questioning, they all continued to deny knowledge of the crime. The 8 year old was particularly adamant about his innocence. "Mom, you always blame me for everything." I silently agreed with him. After all, he is responsible for more then his fair share of mischief in our home.

This morning he was up at, get this, 7 a.m.! It was Saturday morning. The other 4 inhabitants of the house were blissfully asleep and his was bouncing off of the walls. Why can't he get up like that on a school morning? Anyway, he bounced downstairs as I was fixing breakfast and urged me to check my wallet. "The money might be in there." "You probably counted wrong." I knew I had not counted wrong and told him that there was no need for me to check my wallet. The money was not there. He insisted. You could have knocked me over with a feather: the money was in my wallet. "See, Mom, you just counted wrong last night."

I looked at my son and did not ask him if he had taken the money. I asked him why he had taken the money. He denied and denied and denied until he was blue in the face. And then admitted that he had committed the crime. I won't go into the resulting conversation, discussion of consequences, tears, snot and wailing, etc, etc. It was not fun for either of us.

Crime Number Two
This morning I took the kids to Old Navy to get the 13 year old some badly needed shorts. This is not the place to recount the 4 year olds flip flop tantrum. Suffice it to say that the folks at Old Navy were happy to see us leave. We then headed to A.C. Moore for some promised beads and hemp cord for the 4 year old. Promised way before the tantrum. At the check out isle, with all of them talking at me at once, I failed to notice my son slip a Sharpie marker into his pocket. He had been begging, pleading for a Sharpie ever since we had arrived at check out. I tried to explain to him that a permanent marker was not a good choice for him. If he decided to draw on his baby sister's face, which he does more often then you would think possible, she would be disfigured for weeks.

When we arrived home and my son got out of the car I noticed the marker sitting on his seat. He is not yet a master criminal, Thank God. He, of course, denied that he had taken the marker. "How did that get there?" At this point I was furious. I sent them in to eat lunch and called A.C. Moore. I explained the situation to the manager and told him that we would be back to return the item. I then asked if he would "put the fear of God into my son. I mean, scare the crap out of him. And, I warn you, he is cute. Golden curls, the smile of an angel. A real charmer. If you even crack a tiny smile my son will think it is all a joke." The manager agreed to my plan.

My son and I rode in silence back to the store. His 11 year old sister had decided to freak him out by telling him that he would probably have to go to juvenile hall. I was not going to disabuse him of the notion. Maybe later. When I was calm. At the store he returned the Sharpie to the manager and apologized. The manager was terrific. He looked at me once with a gleam in his eye and I nodded to my son. Stay on point, man. He finished up with praise for me, if you can believe. "You have a good mother. She cares about the path you will travel in life and is trying to teach you right from wrong." My son ran to the car and cried all of the way home. Excellent result!

As we sat in the driveway at home, I finally had calmed down enough to speak to him. I reminded him that I always,always love him, no matter what he has done. He needed to be reminded of that because I know he was feeling very unlovable. Then it was time to talk about property rights, trust, conscience and lying. The consequence for both crimes was for him to wet mop the entire downstairs. It took him almost two hours and he worked hard. And my floors are clean. And I hope that he has learned his lesson. If it happens again we are going to visit our local police station. Too harsh? Maybe, but you don't know my son.

p.s. light rain, no sun, glass of wine in hand