Experience Counts for Nothing

      In a typical Friday night fashion, my oldest two girls had plans.  I love that my 16 year old is driving now and on her way to the mall she dropped my 12 year old off at a party. As they walked out the door, I said "Make good choices!" This is the umpteenth time I said this to AnnaMichelle, but the first time I said it to Shelby.  At 9:00 AnnaMichelle texts that she has Shelby and is bringing her home. At 9:22 she calls me and I ask where she is at (expecting her to say that she is right around the corner). Instead she says she is only a few minutes from her starting point. When I ask her why it has taken her so long, she simply says "Ask Shelby." So I tell her to be careful and come home. I will talk to Shelby when she gets home. 


      So Shelby gets home and come to find out that the party she went to,  traveled to the other side of town to TP the house of one of coaches at our school.  Apparently he was targeted because he has an awesome sense of humor.  But I was speechless. AnnaMichelle, being four years older had never done anything like that. I didn't know what to do.  To be honest, if they had TP'ed someone's house that I didn't like- I would have laughed, felt a little bad, and gone on with my life.....but, this Coach is really a good person and although I agreed he would have a good sense of humor about it, I knew it still needed to be cleaned up.  So then I worried, what do I do? Do I confess my child was involved and offer to clean it? (Of course this includes NOT giving the rest of the kids names...don't want to get my daughter in trouble with her friends.) Or do I just stay out of it?  My conscience was eating me alive. This is where having raised one child past the age of 12 I would have thought I was experienced.  But instead, I was clueless. Apparently, even though I told her to "Make good choices" I am going to have to lock her in a closet for the next 7 years!!  Upon some additional questioning, I found out this had been in the plans for weeks. When Shelby showed up at the party there were 40 rolls of TP waiting for them.  They took several cars out to his house and when they got there my daughter confessed that she was the first one to throw a roll.  I asked if they used all 40 rolls and she said no, they got scared and used only about half.  But I could only imagine what it looked like when they got done.


     So I asked Shelby which other kids were there to see if I was comfortable enough with any of the parents to talk to them- and I was very thankful that there was another parent.  The other mom and I discussed it and decided that I would text the Coach and let him know about our involvement and ask what time they would be up in the morning to clean it up.  Coach, of course, was good natured and when I told him my child was involved, I only used her first name and he first thought it was a senior.  When I said no, my 6th grade daughter was involved, he laughed and asked if there wasn't a closer house for them to TP.  Lucky for us, some of his neighbors saw his house and cleaned most of it up for him! I am so thankful to those neighbors, because it is COLD out there this morning!!! 


By the way, the reason the girls were only minutes from there original destination was because Shelby wanted AnnaMichelle to drive out to Coach's house to see it. As AnnaMichelle heads in that direction, she realizes how far away it is and decides she just needs to turn around and go home.  


I sure hope TPing houses in the 6th grade isn't a gateway crime to other forms of vandalism......if it is, I am in big trouble! Lesson learned: Having raised one child doesn't mean you know anything about raising a different child= Experience counts for nothing!!!

Thinking Back to 2002

This morning on the way to school, the kids and I noticed a house that still had their Christmas tree up and the lights were on!! I couldn't help but reminisce about the year 2002......  That was the year that we had our tree up past Valentine's day. I remember it because we had a family member babysitting the kids while Ben and I were in school (me in the MBA program at Belmont and Ben in Law School).  While she was babysitting AnnaMichelle and Shelby, they made Valentines and decorated the tree with them!!! I came home from school that night and couldn't help but laugh!

It was no wonder it was up so long that year:  That was the year we lost a close family friend, very unexpectedly, at the beginning of January. Then my Grandfather passed away 2 weeks later and I had to go out of town for the funeral.  Then when I returned, I had to pack again, because I was going to London for 7 days as part of my MBA program.  Ben and I were both working full time (me as the Director of General Care Nursing Home and Ben as a law clerk at his current office) and we were both going to school 2 to 3 nights a week!! We were both graduating that year (Ben in June and me in August). Taking the Christmas tree down was simply not a priority!!

So of course, after telling this story to the kids, they all laughed and said: "We decorated the tree with hearts?!"  LOL, should have known that was the part of the story they would focus on!!