This morning, I awoke to the sound of breaking glass...A LOT of breaking glass...a steady stream of broken glass, almost as if someone was systematically breaking every glass in the kitchen. My first reaction was to think that we were being broken into, except I knew it was late enough into the morning that the kids where downstairs.
My second reaction was to yell down stairs, "STAY PUT...DON'T MOVE!!!" I knew whoever the responsible party was, they would not be wearing shoes. I didn't want them to get cut so I kept yelling that as I ran downstairs. When I got down there, I saw my oldest on the kitchen counter with her hands in the cabinet, trying to hold a shelf up while glass fell around her.
"I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!! I'M SORRRRRIEEEEEEEE!" she cried. What were you doing? "I was trying to get some candy."
Shaka, when the walls fell...This is something she knows she is not supposed to do. She is not supposed to climb on the counter, and she is not supposed to get into candy. This has been a discussion we have had many times.
As I proceeded with her punishment (a drop of Tabasco in her mouth) she said, "I said I was sorry!" To which I replied, "I'm sure you are, but look around you." "But I didn't know that was going to happen!" "That is why you don't do things you are not supposed to, because your actions have consequence."
I've since cleaned up the glass, and added supports to the shelf to keep it from failing again...what a morning.
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5 comments:
Ah... poor kiddo, bet she was terrified. :(
I remember one time the shelves in my laundry room came randomly falling down off the wall. Had it too overloaded with stuff.
The dog was in there. Came down at three in the morning. Run in there with my shotgun thinking something is amiss. Dog bolts past me completely terrified with tail between legs.
Dang! what a mess. I'll never forget the dog's look, though...
She was. There was about 5 min in between the incident and the discipline. I almost didn't punish her at all...There was some discussion about whether or not she had been punished enough already. I decided that the glass breaking was a natural consequences of her actions and not a logical one. So she got what we call spice. Between to two I think/hope she has learned her lesson.
One of the hardest things for small children to learn is that "I'm sorry" doesn't actually make things all better. I think they all go through a stage--however short--where they think that the consequences don't matter as long as they're sorry.
Thankfully, most of them get past that.
Wow! That looks like one expensive 'stay out of the candy jar' lesson.
I bet she will remember this for the rest of her life.
You can hold this one over her for years to come. "Remember that Saturday morning you tried to sneak some candy from the candy jar and ..."
Hey! Maybe I should hide our candy up with the breakables.
That was like the fourth worst episode of Star Trek TNG ever.
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