An Idle Mind...

So yesterday when I was hibernating/vegging out, the kids were under minimal supervision and just playing all day, hanging out, no fighting - thank goodness, but mainly doing what they wanted. Well when I finally surfaced I noticed that in addition to eating all of the Valentine candy Jax had brought home from school and watching Spongebob all day Jackson had taken the scissors to the pants of his long underwear - new from Christmas that he's worn once under his clothes to play in the snow but mainly likes to play ninja in them because they're navy blue....yes - cut holes in the pants....I know this because when I ask him about it he looks off in the distance and ignores me. That's his signal for yes I did it and I know I'm not supposed to so I'm pretending I don't hear you, la, la, la. Then Dad chimes in that he'd written ON his new desk. That did it so I handed him some rubber gloves and some cleaning supplies and told him to march upstairs and get the marker off the desk or the desk was coming out of his room, buh bye. A little while later I thought I might be hearing some strange music or the cries of mourning doves - turns out it was him upstairs moaning and crying because I was so mean to him and he was now "very sad". Hmmmm, very sad. I had to explain that my reaction was mild compared to how angry I was that he'd destroyed new clothing and marked up a new piece of furniture and that if he cut, wrote in, glued anything to, pierced, or otherwise damaged any property he was really in for it. I'm not 100% sure I got my point across because he is under the false impression that he can do "anything he wants." I don't think my explaining that he might be surprised to know that not even his dad or I can do "anything we want." Examples being the fact that I was sitting there listening to him tell me how mean I am when I'd rather be doing something else - like eating dinner out ALONE with my Valentine vs. ungrateful kid...and the fact that I am not off work for President's Day but would prefer to be home with the rest of the family. He misses the point by telling me surely I'm wrong because it's President's Day and I must really be off.....A work in progress my little man!