Okay moms out there, I’m going to honest for a moment. I like my children to make a moderate amount of noise when they are playing. The noise helps me keep track of what they are doing. It’s when they get quiet that I get nervous and worried. I mentioned in “You Know you’re a Mommy Crusader When” that the quiet moments lead to some interesting situations in my household. I can think of three examples that happened recently.
The first happened this morning. I was upstairs dealing with a child who needed some teaching for a moment. Everything was quiet downstairs, so all was well . . . I thought. While I was trying to understand and be understood with this child, my second grader came running into the room carrying the baby. My second grader is incredibly excellent with watching the baby, even when I haven’t asked him to do it. So, his appearance with the baby put me on my guard. Out of breath, he said too quickly, “The Kindergartener’s colored with markers on the baby.” I was taken by surprise and asked him to repeat himself. He took a deep breath and said “The Kindergartener has colored with markers on the baby.” I sent the Kindergartener to time out. I finished dealing with the other child, and went to inspect the damage. My baby looks like someone’s put war paint on her. My Kindergartner’s first words to me, “It’s okay, Mommy, the marker is washable.”
Deep breath. Deep, deep breath.
Later, I left my laptop open and on the ground while I was popping some popcorn for my preschooler, who has to take it easy for a little while. The living room was quiet and peaceful, I thought. When I came back, the baby had more programs, windows, and files open then I have ever opened on my laptop, ever. I was just glad she hadn’t crashed the hard drive in the 3 minutes I was gone.
Deep breath. Deep, deep breath.
One final example of how moms need to beware of the quiet moments happened earlier this week. I was working on the blog content for the day, while my husband was managing the site. All was quiet, which means, “all is well,” right? Not exactly. My preschooler comes into the living room and says “I didn’t put all the black tape on my chair.” What? I went to investigate with my preschooler in tow. There’s her kid sized chair with black electrical tape wrapped all around the legs. Might I add, the tape was wrapped very carefully around the chair legs. She admitted that she really was the person who did the deed.
Deep breath. Deep, deep breath.
The quiet moments when my children are awake give me nightmares. One of these days, I’m going to pop in and find – I don’t know what – and that scares me. And sometime in the future, I’ll look back, I’m sure, and laugh at all this. Does anyone else have these types of moments? Let me know, I’d love to know my family isn’t the only one like this.
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I had to take a deep breath when I saw the picture before reading… that does not look like marker on baby’s face. I thought she had gotten hurt. I am very thankful it was a quiet marker moment and not a quiet injury moment. Sometimes I miss my kids being little… but I don’t miss quiet being scary.
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Sorry to have scared you. I was glad I had been forewarned that it was marker, too. The Kindergartener is on marker restriction for a couple of days because of the moment though. I look forward to when I can enjoy the quiet. Thanks for the concern and well wishes as well as the comments.
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Glad all is well.
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Thank you.
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I like the tape around the chair, looks like something I would have done as a kid!
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I can believe it. Hmm, maybe I have a budding tech guru in the family? Thanks for commenting!
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you have it easy. when my kids are quiet we loose loads of laundry to scissors, we loose hair from one or the other’s head (that was my go to toddler mischief), and the worst is when it is quiet right before terrible noise. that is when we are downloading zombies to our I-pads so we can scare our friends to tears. lol kids, can’t have enough fun with out them 😀 I blame the wonder loom, I always investigated rapidly when I only heard “peace” and quiet before the wonder loom. now it is 50/50 playing nicely with rubber bands or mischief.
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LOL! At least you’re making improvements — 50 percent of the time, anyway.
Thanks for your stories and comments.
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I lately struggle with my 23 month old wanting to be alone in the room, doors shut. She doesn’t let us in when we knock and ask. There’s a side of me that know her room is safe, there’s part of me being extremely scared and then there’s part of me so happy with the quiet and that she doesn’t need me for 10-30 mins. I want to respect her need for privacy but… what saves me is our baby phone with video. I just need to remember to leave it switched on all the time.
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I completely relate to all of what you just shared… And the video baby monitor is genius. Thanks for coming by and sharing.
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Oh that kindergartener! He knew he could get in trouble for coloring his sister, and then thought through an argument that would justify his actions. What a clever boy! My husband used to do that as a kid. He got grounded from watching TV once and when his parents came home and found him playing Nintendo games, he argued that he hadn’t disobeyed because he wasn’t watching TV shows. Another time he was grounded from riding his bike. Upon his parents finding him riding his friend’s bike, he argued that he had not been grounded from riding it. I expect your kindergartener will have plenty more stories like this in his future.
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If he does I may be contacting your husband for “legal” advice in the future. Thanks for the comment and coming by.