You won't believe this...

I'm surprised that I didn't think to blog about this sooner! This is one of those strange stories that I would expect to hear happened to someone else. Not me.

Three Sundays ago, I think, we came back from church and lunch at McDonald's. (Now a couple of you know where I'm going with this!) Actually, the boys and I came home, while Adam and our friend Dave, who was staying with us for the weekend, went to watch a football game. (Not having cable is problematic when you need to watch a football game...you can't do it in your own house!) Anyway, so the boys and I walk in our front door, and I'm getting ready to take Levi upstairs and put him down for nap. Drake asks if he can play in the backyard. Well, sure. Why not? So out he goes. Five seconds later, he's back. And he's asking, "Mommy, why are all those toys outside?" "What toys?" (I'm confused.) "My cars and Bionicles and some books, too."

Oh...no...

A thought crosses my mind - but I push it out. Impossible. Neighbor children inside our house while we're gone?

Oh yeah.

That's right. While we were out, two neighbor boys from down the street (ages seven and three), not only came into our backyard, but came through our sliding glass door (which I had obviously failed to lock) and into our house, taking some of the toys from the playroom and the living room back out to the yard to play with. What?! Even when the pieces started coming together (including an incriminating eye-witness account from the neighbors directly behind us), I was still in shock. The weird thing is, we barely know these kids! And I had never even met the parents. We'd been seeing a lot of them over the few days prior, which is really the only factor that made the story seem plausible at first. But it was indeed true.

Several questions came to mind. A lot of them actually. Where all did these children go in my home? (Hopefully not through my underwear drawer.) Am I overreacting? Like, is this something one should expect if they forget to lock their sliding door? (Ummm...no.) What would have happened if we had owned a kid-eating doberman? (Could I live with that?) Or what if they had just fallen off our swing set in the backyard and sprained an ankle or something? (Our insurance would be paying for it, I'll tell you that. The US government would make sure of it.) And how about this: Where were Mom and Dad, and did they even have a clue what their children had been up to that morning?

So anyway, I went and introduced myself and (very politely) discussed the situation with the boys' parents (who were both home at the time of the incident, by the way). In the parents' defense, Dad had just returned home from a deployment, and things tend to get a little crazy during that readjustment phase. The boys had been playing outside, and when Dad went looking for them, found them in our yard and made them come home. (The parents had no idea they had been in our house, but the little one readily confessed!)

After that, I immediately called my friend, Cherie. I needed to burden someone else with my bizarre story! And by the end of the conversation I was feeling, well, a little more normal and less shocked. And reallyreallyreally thankful that our "intruders" were little kids who just borrowed toys from inside our house - they didn't even take them. It could easily have been something oh so very much worse!

So anyway, now we have locks on the backyard gates and try to remember to lock the sliding door, pretty much whenever it's not in use. And just in time, too. Because yesterday I forgot to lock the door, and Levi figured out how to open it. I found him happily playing in the yard by himself, with the door wide open. Well, at least he couldn't get out of the yard!

A small mutiny

We're having company in a few days, so I've started thinking about preparing for that. And we're also having Drake's 6th birthday party here a week from tomorrow. So yesterday afternoon, I went into the playroom and sat down in the middle of the floor, sorting toys. Army men with the army men, Transformers with the Transformers, baby toys in the baby toy bins, and all the miscellaneous stuff....ummm....over here in these drawers. Now, admittedly I should have had Drake doing it, or at least helping me, but I just didn't feel like I could handle any more battles with him yesterday.

So I was in there sorting, and Drake came in, and asked in a horrified voice, "Mommy, what are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning up the playroom," I told him.

"No," he whined, "Don't do that! I like it this way!" pointing to the toy-scattered landscape.

"But isn't it easier to find things when it's all cleaned up?"

"No, it's easier to find them when I can see them all! I don't want you to clean it!"

I was surprised, to say the least. Unfortunately, I sort of expect that kind of reaction when he's the one doing the cleaning, but I was cleaning it myself! If he doesn't even like things picked up when someone else is willing to do it for him, how am I ever going to get him motivated to keep his stuff picked up on his own?

How I would love to have a maid!! But apparently my son would rather live in clutter. Neither of us actually enjoys picking stuff up, but at least I like it when things are organized! Perhaps that's an acquired trait?

I know I'm setting myself up for all kinds of derision and advice by posting something like this, but I am weary. I know that I am the parent - "the boss" - but after awhile I feel like there is a mutiny going on, and it's such a battle to deal with the same sinful attitude issues in my kids over and over again. Consistency is the key; I know this. And I need to not give in or back down (and not do things like clean something up myself that I should have Drake doing, only because I can do it 10 times faster and because I don't want to listen to his protests).

Often, Drake is a sweet, helpful kid who thinks of others before himself. And then there are times like now. I don't feel like we're doing anything different with him, but it saddens and disappoints me when he can't get along with his playmates, whines and complains about everything all day, says mean things to his brother, and the list goes on. I am apprehensive about him starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks, because I really don't want him to get off on the wrong foot with his teacher and classmates, but his whole disposition has been so "sour" lately. I know there is a kind, sweet, hard-working little boy in there somewhere. Where did he go?

But really, I see many of the same attitude problems that he is displaying reflected in my own heart, and I'm not too efficient at getting rid of them either. I complain a lot too, often inwardly, but that doesn't make it any better. I can be lazy too - I don't want to do things that seem overwhelming to me. So I understand it. I really do. But I think we find it even harder to deal with sin in others that we ourselves struggle with. Maybe because it seems more hopeless?

Yesterday I took the TV away indefinitely. You would think the entire world had ended. Then a little while ago, I told him I was about to take "play" away from him, too, if he could not be thankful for it and stop complaining. I guess I had better get to thinking of lots of chores he can do this afternoon. I pray that I will not have to take it quite that far...