Don't Even Think About Feeding The Frogs

Remember that lecture that you used to get from your parents when you were fifteen? You know, the whole sit-down, look-you-in-the-eye, "I'm very disappointed" lecture? That one? Yeah, well, try getting it at thirty-five. It's worse. Like, so worse.

This past Saturday, we spent a good chunk of the day over at my parent's house. It was a very relaxing day. We had a nice visit, did a little shopping with my mom, hubbs and my dad visited in the garage, the girls jumped on the trampoline, we had some chili. It was incredibly pleasant.

Fast forward to about 11:30 the following evening. Just before bed, I check e-mail. There is an e-mail from my dad. Or what I would like to refer to as a 1000 word essay, on "How To Be A Better Parent."

About an hour earlier, my parent's arrived home from a wedding to find their frog aquarium completely clouded over. My sister had pet frogs, and left them with my parent's to take care of while she went away for a year to teach in Thailand (a whole other story). Anyway, my parent's have managed to do a great job at keeping the frogs alive the entire time. So you can imagine their surprise to come home and find the aquarium in much disarray. It looked like a whole bottle of frog food had been dumped into the tank. Even worse, my brother had just spent an hour and a half cleaning it out the day before. Thankfully, the frogs were still alive, very fat and content gorging themselves on the bounty that had been provided.

So I get this essay from my dad, about raising children and teaching them to not get into things they shouldn't get into to. All things I've never, never heard before and have never, never, never thought to teach my children. This is news to me. My dad's good about adding the happy faces at the end of his sentences, so that it doesn't sound like a lecture, but I know my dad. He might as well be sitting right in front of me. I can hear the tone. I'm in trouble. This totally stinks.

So Sunday (the morn, after my dad's essay/e-mail), after a much restless night, cuz I totally should not have read that right before I went to sleep, I know I need to get to the bottom of this and figure out which girl-o-mine did this. Of course, it's A-girl. Bless her, it usually is. Though I do have to say, the last time we went over to my parent's house, O broke a table. That was another lecture (though not as bad as the frog one). O totally didn't mean to do it, it was a nesting table, that fit under a larger table, and O thought it was a chair. She was sitting on it coloring at the bigger table. The big lesson for that one was that she didn't tell anyone she did it (accident or no) and my parent's found it on their own. So that was a biggie and only the weekend before. We are on a roll, aren't we? Hence, the 1000 word essay on parenting, from my dad.

See, it is my fault, more than the kiddos. They are totally doing what 7 and 5-yr-old's do. What happens is I get over to my parent's house and it feels like my house. All comfy and relaxing and that's what I do. I get comfy and relaxed and if I know where the kiddos are in the house, can hear them, no one is crying, check on them off and on, I'm thinking..."we're good." Totally a completely different scenario than say, shopping at Target, or walking through a parking lot. We're at grandma's house. It's nice there. The food is good. There are soft things. Safe. Because of all these wonderful things, we always want to go to grandma's.

I know my kids aren't horrible kids and that my parent's aren't thinking, "Hit the road Jack, and don't ya come back no more, no more, no more, no more..." just because one daughter broke a table and the other one fed the frogs a year's supply of food. I know that's not the case (my dad had happy faces at the ends of his sentences). But when your parent's call you on something like that, actually say, "you need to teach..." it kind of feels like that. Like you are the worst parent in the world, cuz your kids haven't learned these valuable lessons yet. I can't predict what they will do next. I can rest assured it will always be something good. I just hope I'm in the room to catch them before they do it.