Dancing on the Edge

My Son

My son has a conscience. You have no idea how relieved his other mom and I are to see it coming into play. Normally, non-truths tend to spill fromm him pretty easily but I am quick to catch him, get the truth and explain why we don't lie but last week something happened....he actually got away with a lie.

I was folding laundry in my room and, next door in Kelton's room, the kids were playing. Kaylen had been "helping" me put away laundry and Kelton was mostly just hanging out. Suddenly I heard a horrific noise - like wood shattering with a few metal sounds thrown in for good measure. I flew into the room and found Kaylen sitting in the top drawer on her side of the dresser and Kelton standing across the room. Kelton's middle drawer was clearly broken in some manner.

I demanded to know what had happened to the drawer and Kelton told me that Kaylen had climbed in it and it broke. Ok - I could buy that. She was, after all, still sitting in the top drawer on her side. It wasn't hard to buy that she had used the drawers as a ladder and one broke. She has a bad habit to scaling up the dresser to sit on the top of it. (It's a 6 drawer dresser, three drawers on each side. They share it.)

I sent both kids out of the room while I worked on figuring out what had happened and how/if it could be fixed. It turned out that the drawer runners had been pried from their tracks in the back. I wasn't sure how a 27lb kid could have put that much force on the drawer but figured that she must have jumped in it or something. It wasn't pretty and I had no clue how I could get it fixed as nothing I tried was working. An hour later, Dakota arrived home from work to find me with various tools stacked around me, cussing at the dresser.

In the end, we finally were successful in repairing the drawer and life moved on.

That was last Friday.

Last night while Dakota was getting the kids ready for bed, Kelton got quiet and said there was something he needed to tell her but that he was scared she would be angry. After reassuring him that she might be a little angry at first she would do her best to fix whatever it was. He confessed about the drawer. He had been the one who broke it because he wanted to sit in a drawer like Kaylen (which for the record is a big no-no for everyone). Dakota talked with him about the situation and then they decided that Kelton would tell me. So he did.

I'm so proud of him for coming out with the truth! We talked about how lies can make you icky inside and sad (not the first time he heard all this but now he had a point of reference on which to draw). Suddenly, he looked like a different kid - like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I was so, so proud of him and told him so. We talked about how much better it is to tell the truth than to walk around knowing you lied.

He has a conscience!! Now if only the lesson would stick the first time around. :)

PS..I haven't forgotten to share the rest of the beach trip. I will probably write more tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned! :)