Broken Windows/Growing Souls

Thought I would just log on while the kids are all asleep. The days are all blurring together as we've been trying to get "stuff done" around here. I'll be trying to go through and clean, er.. purge things.

DH fixed a window yesterday that P had broken inadvertently. The little ones had all worked together to build a rather impressive block tower about 5' tall. They decided to let P get the first turn knocking it over. He grabbed a block, wound up, released and missed the tower completely, hitting the window instead. I was in the kitchen at the time. J came up to tell me that P was crying.

"Is he hurt?" No, he was crying because he thought he would be in trouble. It was the kind of scene from "The Christmas Story" where Ralphie is concerned for his brother that "Daddy is gonna kill him" and he's hidden himself under a sink somewhere. Now, I wondered to myself why he would be so afraid... This is the third window he has broken in his short little life and not once has he ever been penalized more than a dark look of disappointment.

Well, he might have been punished the time he tried to hit his sister with a wooden play kitchen onion. He missed, thank goodness, and blew out the girl's bedroom window. I still wonder what the neighbors and passers-by thought when they heard the shattering of glass and saw an onion flying out into the middle of our front yard.

I can't remember now how the third window was broken.

But I do remember the time he purposefully peeled a 3 foot square sheet of wallpaper off of a main wall in the kitchen just to give me something else to do. On the same day he had wreaked havoc in several other rooms and as I was cleaning those things and putting them right I would find something else he had done. When I got around to the wallpaper I just dropped and cried as I had no more energy to do anything else. He just smiled at me! His punishment for that was having to stay by my side and help me fix it. He would have to stay by my side for a few days/weeks after that. Of course, he was too little to really know better.

So, why the tears for something he didn't really intend to do? Perhaps his little conscience is finally awakening! It is about time.

Well, I just meant to write a little and now three are up, ready for breakfast. Hmmm...

Where is P?