Score One For the Parents

I love my children with a fierce, true, passionate love.

I needed to start by saying that.

Yesterday morning when I woke up, my day began unraveling the moment my feet hit the floor.  Abby woke up in INTENSE pain from a malfunction with the braces, Tolley the cat needed to be dropped off to be declawed (another story in itself!) by a certain time, I had to post a review and be at tennis.....and all of this had to happen in an hour and a half.

Did I mention tennis is 30 minutes away?

I kissed Andy and sent him on his way to work in a haste because he was late for a meeting.  I called the orthodontist and wrestled kitty-soon-to-be-soft-paws into her carrier and headed to the bedroom to get dressed. (Thank goodness I had already made myself a cup of coffee!)

In came Andy!

"My truck is broke!  The key won't go in or turn anything!"

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!  I could smell the burnt tires of my daycome to a grinding halt.  Where DID that cup of coffee go?????????

Long story short......Ben had played in the driver seat, locked up the steering wheel, and snapped a switch rod in the steering column.  Don't worry, he's still alive.

Andy had to take the day off, find a lock and key guy, and pay $450 to have it fixed.

Still alive- stop sweating.

We decided NOT to punish Ben in the heat of the moment because this was too big. This was a "Pray and get our wits about us" offense.  Andy truly won my heart (for the 4,357,291st time).  He had us all meet at the table.  He drew a picture of the parts in the steering wheel and explained to Ben what his careless playing had done. He told him how much it cost to fix it and, to make sure he understood the amount, compared it to the recent trip he had taken the kids on to Wendy's. "25 trips to Wendy's, Ben." Ben's eyes, already quite large, looked like the Harvest Moon!

Now please understand, this was not a planned expense for us and we are actually covering it with money set aside to pay towards Abby's braces.  This, infact, is a hardship for us.

SO I look at it like this......we could have spanked Ben, thrown him in his room, grounded him for life and sold all of his toys to help cover the cost.........or........we could teach him about consequences, hardship, grace, and ultimately forgiveness. Not to mention a lesson on how much his Momma and Daddy love him, no matter what he may do.

But don't get me wrong.........he's gonna be cleaning kitty boxes from now til he's 30!