Comedy of Tragedies

Did you ever watch Saturday morning cartoons and think this guy to the left was kinda cute in a totally destructive kind of a way? I did. He was one of my favorite Warner Brothers characters. Was. Then I became a parent and started living with my own personal lovable object of mass destruction. It has always been kind of an inside (as in Bill and I try to keep it "inside" but often have to give each other those knowing side glances) joke about our youngest son's propensity to loose things.

This weekend we have had a comedy of tragedies in our home. Chronically loosing things and inadvertently destroying things are different, yet related. At a certain point it just doesn't seem funny, adorable and endearing anymore and the real test of what you are made of as a parent commences.

We are both hoping this will be funny in a few years. That lessons learned at 8 will help prevent the same lessons at 16. (Yeah, I know, but let me hold onto that dream for a few more years.) So far here is the list of true accidents that have been simultaneously irritating, infuriating, and expensive.

Let us start where my memory does. Romney and Bill spent hours designing and building and painting a car for the Pinewood Derby (coming up next week). It was 100% completed and drying on the counter. Romney asked if he could see it as soon as it was dry, and within 15 seconds, it slipped through his hands, hit the floor, and broke the glued on propeller (It is a yellow submarine car. Cool, no?) It took longer to glue the propeller on than for Romney to successfully un-glue it. No biggie, right. I just re-glued it for him while he went off to school.

We have had a broken bowl this week from our TAS.

We have a couch with stitching coming loose in the corner from our TAS.

Our TAS dropped his DS into a toilet at Lowe's (Where we were hunting for storage solutions for kids to put their school supplies, since the hooks they were using were accidentally pulled off the wall.) killing it dead.

He dropped a glass soda bottle and while Bill was cleaning it up, the piece de' resistance. The real kick in the pants happened... he closed the top of William's new (used) laptop onto a mouse and busted the screen and lost William's science project in the process. Did I mention that about 6 hours prior we had just sold William's old laptop to someone else, because we really didn't need it! I didn't? Huh, must have slipped my mind.

Did I mention that these were all legitimate "accidents". The devastated young child was not being careless. (Except the sofa, I have warned him for a year that he will break it if he keeps sitting/jumping off of it that way he does. We also made him pay a percentage of the cost of replacing it.) The DS fell out of his pocket where he has "safely" stashed it while doing his "business". He was just trying to be nice carrying 3 sodas up from the basement. The pinewood derby car just slipped through his fingers. I am not sure if it would be better if he was doing things intentionally or the accidental route. I feel like I would know what to do as a parent if it were the former. Since it is the latter, I have the distinct privilege of learning and growing with him. Exercising more patience than I knew was humanly possible as I tell him for the thousandth time-- "I am not mad at you, just frustrated with the situation." and "What can you learn from this for next time?' Not to mention the tried and true "What can you do to help make it better?" When what I really want to do is shake him from head to toe yelling "What the F*@!?, Again, really?! I can't keep up with you!" You know-- all those things that are quick to come to mind and even quicker to kill a child's self worth.

Tonight, I have the opportunity to think it silently to myself (Well, maybe out-loud after bed time to Bill and the blog readers who find themselves grateful not to be us at the moment.) As well as a quiet opportunity to remind myself about all the things I find charming and amazing about my own personal Tasmanian devil.