Life's Little Lessons

You know how, as a parent, there are things that you just don't want your kids to do, but they are going to do them anyway as they grow, learn and get older?  Then there are those conversations that you just dread having with your kids because of said action?  I dealt with it twice yesterday.  Once with Paizlei and once with Hunter.  The topic of the action and the conversation: STEALING!!!

You read that right, stealing!  I had to run to the market yesterday to drop off Hunter's prescription for his Concerta (long-acting Ritalin), and pick up a few things while we were waiting for them to fill the RX.  We were coming down an isle and Paizlei found some bubbles...ridiculously priced bubbles.  I told her I wasn't buying them and asked her to put them back on the shelf where she found them.  She kept telling me she wanted them.  Each time, I calmly told her I wasn't buying them because we had a HUGE bottle of bubbles at home and asked her to put them back.  I turned my back to see if not having me facing her would make her put the back.  She runs off with them...bee-lines for the doors.  I leave Hunter and Cooper where they were at in the store and ran after her.  While she was exiting the market, the manager is watching the whole thing unfold.  A sweet lady from my ward was there, and went to keep and eye on Hunter and Cooper.  I finally caught her.  We walked back in the market, and to where the bubbles were at, and asked her calmly to please put the bubbles back, she bee-lines for the door.  To make a long story short, I finally took the bubbles out of her hand and put them back where they go, picked her up, put her in the already crammed shopping cart, went and paid for our things and left.  When we got to the car, I sat her in her seat, buckled her in, and told her when she walks out of the store with something she hasn't paid for, or Mommy or Daddy hasn't paid for, it's called stealing.  I told her it's illegal, the cops can be called and if she were older, she could go to jail.  Bless her sweet little heart, she hears the word jail, and she pipes off, "I can go be with Daddy and go to work with him!  He work at jail!!!".  Not quite the answer I wanted.  Anyway, I calmly told her, no, she wouldn't be going with Daddy and that Daddy probably wouldn't be there.  There were other things in the conversation about choosing right from wrong and stealing.  Not sure if she got it, and I'm pretty sure I will be having more of these conversations.

Yesterday afternoon we were at my Mom's.  She has this booklet that goes to an old game that she threw away or gave to the D.I.  Hunter ALWAYS plays with this book when he is at her house.  He even has it marked with his name.  He calls it his checkbook...it kind of looks like a checkbook.  When we were getting ready to go, he asks my Mom if he can take it home.  My Mom told/asked him, "If you take it home, what are you going to play with here?".  He goes on playing with it.  A few minutes later, he is playing with the diaper bag.  He zips it up and brings it to me and tells me it's all ready to go.  Not thinking anything of it, I ask him to go sit the diaper bag back down and I will get it when I am ready to go.  Later, when we get home, I'm unpacking the diaper bag, putting Cooper's milk back in the fridge, I notice the book!  It's tucked nice tight underneath the clothes in the diaper bag.  I pull it out and ask him what it was?  He says, "Grandma said I could take it home.".  "No! Grandma didn't say you could bring it home, Hunter.  Grandma asked you if you brought it home, what would you play with at her house.  That doesn't mean you can take it home.  That is stealing, Hunter.  You took that book out of Grandma's house without her knowing.  You cannot do that.  You just did the same thing that Paizlei did this morning at the market.  Do we do that?".  I made him call my Mom and tell her that he brought the book home and that he will bring it back up to her house next time we go to Ephraim.  I made him promise her he would not take something from her house again without her knowing first.  I'm pretty sure he understood more of what I was saying, than what Paizlei was understanding.  This morning when he woke up, he says to me, "I not steal today, Mommy!  I will ask before I take it!".

Frustrating happenings of the day!  I didn't think after having the conversation with Paizlei earlier in the morning, I would have to have the exact same conversation with Hunter a few hours later.  Being a parent, is one of the hardest jobs EVER!  I just hope that in the end, when my kids are grown up, they will choose the right and these little lessons we are having right now, will pay off.  I want for nothing more than my kids to be well-behaved, well-manner, trusted, honest, likable kids and adults.