Sometimes when I come home from an office day, as soon as I come inside the door, my kids go running off mischievously like little shits. It makes me smile and laugh all the same when they’re playful and being little shits together, and I don’t think anything of it.
The other day, I came home from the office, and as I walked in the door, I saw #2 run down the hallway, clearly following #1 in the day’s edition of hide from dada when he gets home.
And then I turn the corner and I see the marker marks on the wall. Then on the bathroom door, and then on the light switches and various surfaces. My jaw dropped at the incredulousness of them actually having drawn on the walls, as if I figured it was just some trope from a paint ad or something and that my kids wouldn’t actually do it themselves.
Naturally, mythical wife and I were pretty upset with this bad choice, and tried to calmly as possible explain to the girls that what they did was wrong, and why we were making them help clean the marks off of the surfaces they drew on. Dessert and evening television were both taken off the table for the night, and they seemed to understand that they had made a poor choice.
The thing is, the following day, I was thinking about the whole incident but then I found myself smiling and chuckling about it, because of how the girls were working together and having fun together, and I really couldn’t feel that made about it. The squeals of fun and laughter when I walked in the door is music to my ears, and even if they had vandalized walls in their own home, they did so in the name of having fun together, and I just couldn’t be upset with them any longer.
I know that there will come a time when such sounds and behaviors won’t be happening any more, and it’ll make me sad to come to the realization that my kids are too old and grown past such playfulness. So even if it means that they’re making bad choices and doing a little bit of destruction of property, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if they’re doing it together, having fun, and learning afterward that their behavior was not acceptable in a calm and rational response.
