There are times when I wonder about this parenting thing.
Peirce has had issues with being a know-it-all recently. He is slow to do what we ask him to and really sneaky lately. This, coupled with a recently nailpolish fetish, has caused some problems. He got into the nail polish and painted his finger nails. Some got on the futon - but it wasn`t too terrible because of the multitude of colors on our futon cover. We had a big talk though and I told him how dangerous it was for him to use nail polish and to please not do that. I told him if he wanted to use it he could ask me and I would help him (much to Allen`s chagrin). Well, then he snuck it another time. He didn`t make a mess on anything except himself. He painted his toenails, well, more correctly, his feet. We had another big talk. Then he snuck it again, this time to paint a few things like one of Allen`s trophies, the remote control for the TV, etc. Another big talk. Finally I decided I should just give the nail polish away. I don`t really use it, and nor does Jill. Truthfully, I don`t really even like nailpolish - so I offered it up on Freecycle. Well, he noticed it in a bag hanging on the mailbox hooks and snuck some out Friday night while he was supposed to be in bed. When Allen found him he had poured it out onto the stairs of his loft bed and was trying to paint the rest of the stairs. It was dripping on the carpet and on his clothes. By this time it was a huge mess. Rarely have I seen Allen so mad! We decided Peirce needed a big punishment. Initially I said he would have to miss the birthday party on Saturday - but I instantly regretted that because I knew how much his friend wanted him to come - and he very rarely sees her. So after his crying and begging I told him he could pick his punishment. Either a week with no TV, or no birthday party. He chose the week with no TV. I also told him that if he snuck to watch TV and I caught him he`d have another week with no TV - which he was awarded Sunday morning at about 6:00 am. So now we have two weeks that he can`t watch TV. When I first had kids I said that I would never let my kids watch much TV. Now I`m totally sold on it. It`s a great babysitter....and Peirce is truly addicted to it and LOVES TV. We made it through the whole day today without any TV - and truthfully, it`s been great! Peirce has colored, plays with playdough, played on the computer, worked in his little workbooks we have for him, jumped on the trampoline a lot and played in the sandbox. He even had a friend over for the afternoon today. It`s gone so well, I think we might make this a long term way of life. (I just won`t tell him that yet.)
I could get over the damage done by the finger nail polish - but what really got my goat was that we had had a number of conversations specifically about using nail polish - and he just didn`t seem to care. Argh!!!
The funny part to the story was that Allen was telling the story to a friend of his from the ward. Turned our they had a rough Friday too. Their two girls got a full bottle of chocolate syrup and drizzled it all around the house. They were able to empty the entire bottle before they were caught. Ouch!! They said it took well over 11 hours to get the clothes and carpet and furniture cleaned up. Nasty!
Reminds me of the time Jill and Zoe and Soleil threw the eggs all over the kitchen. I was making dinner. I went downstairs to get something from the food storage, and while I was gone they each took a dozen eggs and proceeded to toss them, one by one, all over the kitchen. Eggs are nasty to clean up - but 36 of them!! ugh!! It was terrible.
(sigh) I think that we`ll just wait a few years before we consider a new house, new furniture or anything like that.
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