I do believe the #1 rule of parenting is NEVER TRUST A QUIET TODDLER, and you would think after five boys, I would have learned that lesson, but ohhh nooo…Sometimes I can be a slow learner!
Yesterday, I blogged about my typical morning routine. Part of the reason for that was to show what my mornings are like and why I so appreciated the rare calm when I do get it in the morning.
As a quick recap…Each morning I get four kids out the door to three different schools (Okay, we live in a small school district so two schools are in the same building, but you get the idea). Then I begin getting myself ready. Generally, as any mother of small children knows, showers are not exactly peaceful, and Kaleb constantly parades in and out of my bathroom to show me things and to just check on me so I should have known yesterday that I had too much quiet alone time.
I showered and could hear Kaleb off singing to himself somewhere in the house. Then I got dressed and listened. No Kaleb. Ahhhh… I combed my hair. Still blessed silence. Hmmm… At some point while putting on deodorant, it dawned on me. The house was too quiet!
I guess some mothers may feel concern for the safety of their child, but having had five boys, my first thought was, “OH NO! Now what???”
I long-strided it to the kitchen and skidded to a halt. I am all for supporting independence, resourcefulness, and creativity in my children, but even I have my limits and Kaleb was testing all three.
My very independent, resourceful two year old had pulled a chair from the table, across the dining room, into the kitchen, and over to the counter. From there, he had climbed up, taken an almost full container of sugar and dumped it all over the floor spreading it with the back of a spoon to make roads for his trucks.
When I appeared, he was sitting right in the middle of Sugar Loaf Mountain happily driving through tunnels and over roadways he had created.
“KALEB!” I shouted.
Angelically he looked up and answered sweetly, “Paint sugar!”
Uuugh! I couldn’t even be mad. I should have known the house was too quiet.
Besides, a friend suggested that his artwork kind of looks like those famous French cave paintings of the horses at Lascaux. Think I have a child prodigy on my hands? Or just another cave man?
As sweet as he was, I felt the need to step into his fun, pick him up, and dust him off. The mom side of me thought he needed a lesson in cleaning up too. He vacuumed up most of his mess but had almost as much fun vacuuming as he did driving “crucks” through the mess.
Not sure how well that lesson went for him, but I learned my typical morning routine now definitely must involve a toddler running in and out of my bathroom. If not, life can be even more chaotic but full of sweet blessings nonetheless.
