There are times in life when a person would like to just pick up and move out to the country. On the other hand, life lessons learned when living “among humans” can be priceless.
Last Saturday, I was catching up on some work in the basement and the husband was upstairs napping to gain a little ground on an illness that has been running through the house. The boys were happily playing outside.
After a couple of hours, the youngest appeared at the top of the basement stairs. “Mom, you need to come outside.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“Um, yeah,” he replied.
So, deciding to take a little break from the report I was working on, I meandered up the stairs. I was thinking that the boys had built a fort, or possibly had a very intricate chalk drawing on the driveway that they wanted to show off.
I put on my shoes and headed out the garage door, the youngest son in front of me. At the top of the garage steps I peered out into the neighborhood and froze. There in the middle of the cul-de-sac was an emergency fire vehicle, a police car and what looked like six emergency service professionals standing with my oldest son, the neighbor boy and his parents.
It was about this time that the youngest decided to say, “Um, yeah, mom, you’re probably not going to be too happy with us.”
“What happened.” I heard myself say through clenched teeth.
“They want to talk to you,” he said.
So we walked out to the little group standing in the grass. The first person to acknowledge my presence was a policeman.
“Ma’am, your boys were apparently lighting fireworks, a neighbor saw the smoke and called the fire department.”
He proceeded to explain that fireworks were illegal within the city limits, normally this offense is a $100 fine (which he explained he would not be charging us this time), and did he need to confiscate any other fireworks that we might have in our house?
I politely said thank you, explained that we do not have fireworks in our home, asked the boys to apologize to the nice emergency service personnel and then asked both boys to turn around and return to the garage where we would have a little “family discussion.”
The public areas of the house are now free from toys, the boys room is cleaner than it’s ever been and the garage sparkles. After one month of good behavior, MAYBE we’ll allow them to see the blades of grass in the front yard.
After about a two hour discussion of the ins and outs of the events surrounding what is now going down in history as “the smoke bomb incident,” they have hopefully learned that it does not matter who brought the fireworks to the party, supplying and using carry the same punishment in the real world. It is our job to weigh the options and do what is right.
