I'm laying flagstone down on the grass in front of the garden so NH has a path to walk along with our wearing a path in the grass. I cut away the sod, remove the grass and place the perfectly fit flagstone in the hole. Occasionally, I have to take a 4lbs. sledge and a chisel and remove small chunks. The sprinklers came on, so I resigned my commission, but left the sledge where I would pick up next day.
We had friends over and their kids and our kids were running in the sprinklers. When I left I never gave it a second thought that they might find my sledge. Well, they did.
I think it was wg3 first. He began to pound away at the piece freshly laid. I was upstairs and the other children's mother was outside with the kids. It wasn't long and her daughter joined in the fun, both the same age - 3. Dg5 is said to have taken a swipe, but without breaking anything. As the other children's mother said, "Hey, I don't think you guys should be doing that," dg5 responded, "No, it's okay, my Dad doesn't care." What???
I handled it all very reasonably. I walked out with wg3 and said, "Do you think I laid this flagstone here so you could destroy it with my hammer?"
"Yes." Did he really say yes????
"Actually wg3, no, no I didn't. What should your punishment be?"
"Time out would be good."
"That doesn't seem like enough."
"Okay, some time out and a soft swat on the bottom." Don't be so hard on yourself I think sarcastically. I can't make myself punish him even though it seems right to me that I should.
"Wg3. I'm not going to punish you, but DO NOT even think about doing it again, and you're gonna clean this mess up pal. Deal?"
"Deal." Cute kid.
No comments:
Post a Comment