Forgive Me, I Thought You Were 9

It's not too often that Ruby Jane provides fodder for my blog.  She's a darn good kid-- gifted, I would say.  (Hey, a mom's allowed to brag, right?)  But last night I had to question my assessment of her.  "Special" seemed a more apropos term.

You see, I had just put both the kids in a simultaneous timeout.  (If you've never tried that trick, I highly recommend it-- it's like having a mini-vacation.)  They've been at each other's throats for the past few days, and frankly, I was over it.  Enough already!  

In this particular instance they were fighting over a cheap imitation of Silly Putty-- dollar store brand.  Nasty stuff.  Don't buy it.  The putty actually belonged to LM, but Ruby Jane was trying to assert some of her "older sibling dominance" over her brother by insisting he share with her (a.k.a. grabbing it and demanding he give it to her for a while, as she somehow deemed was her right).  All of you with older siblings are smiling at your own memories about similar acquisitions of your own toys long ago.  But I digress....  Somewhere in the scuffle I gathered my wits about me (it's hard to keep one's wits collected amidst the din of sibling rivalry) enough to separate the two little heathens and put them in their respective timeouts.  But without my realizing it, Ruby Jane snuck the Silly Putty into the corner with her.  Big mistake. 

At the end of their punishments (was it really actually 5 minutes?) I gathered them in for the traditional perfunctory "after timeout talk".  You know, the "settle down and get along or you're really gonna be sorry, blah blah blah...." bit.  But what I was really thinking was, "would it be unreasonable to just leave them in there for another 15 minutes or so?  After all, they were being pretty naughty and the break was really quite lovely".  But alas....

Anyway, what I discovered after I (reluctantly) turned them loose, was a large mass of bright orange goo stuck in the back of Ruby Jane's hair.  "What's this?" I asked incredulously.  I was given a sheepish grin in reply.  I put on my best scolding eyebrows and asked that all-time favorite parental question that is nonetheless completely useless: "What were you thinking?"  

I know exactly what she was thinking.  She was thinking about an effective way to dispose of her brother's stupid Silly Putty.  Well, her plan worked, but not without its personal costs to herself.  She wanted me to simply cut it out.  As if!  "Oh, no, Hon," I said, a bit too devilishly, "you're not getting off that easy."  Her face dropped as she realized my implication.  Yes, we were going to work that large glob of orange ooze out of her hair the old-fashioned way: pull, yank, and comb.  She resigned herself to this fate, and bore up rather well under the pain, I have to say.  After the initial major chunks were removed I slathered her hair with greasy lotion and combed the rest of the junk out.  Then to add insult to injury, she was made to give her own Silly Putty to LM.  (Yes, even though she had her very own putty she still felt the need to take over her brother's.)

And then everyone went to bed suitably repentant, humbled and content.  The end.

But it's always important to try and find the moral of every story.  And in this case, I can think of many, many, many (don't buy cheap imitation Silly Putty, check your children's hands and pockets before releasing them into timeouts, etc.).  But I think the most relevant one I learned this time was: just because your child is 9-years old doesn't mean they have forgotten how to act like a 3-year old.  On the contrary, sometimes I think the older they get, the more time they have to perfect their immaturity.  In any case, I think we all learned a lesson last night.  At least, I'm pretty confident that I will never, ever again have to remove knockoff orange Silly Putty from Ruby Jane's hair as long as we both shall live.  Amen to that!