Of Dioramas and Early Bedtimes...

So, my 7 year old is a boy - my first boy - although he is my fourth child.  And sometimes that kid shocks the heck out of me.  I mean I've heard my whole life that boys are soooo different, but I never really appreciated what that meant until I had one.

The good - great - thing about boys is how much they love their mommies!!  I now know why there are so many awful mother-in-law tales.  It's because there will never be a girl good enough to take my boys' hearts away from me - never.  It's a good thing I have some years to make peace with that whole thing because I'm definitely not ready for it now.  But, that is not what this particular blog is about.

Anyway....the not so good thing about boys is -  just about everything else.  I joke.  There are a lot of great things about boys, it's just that sometimes they are hard to remember when they do things like what I'm about to tell you.

So, Carter loves to smash things - I don't why.  My husband swears it is a "boy thing" and perfectly normal, but to me it seems a little strange.  Yah, I know - boys are different.  So, the other day, he and Pierce were merrily smashing up some boxes and yelling and laughing with delight.  I thought it was great because who cares about some boxes?   Well, no one, unless one of the boxes is your sister's diorama that she worked on very hard and was planning to save.

So, after the meltdown, yelling and tears, we finally figured out that Carter had asked McKinley for permission to use her diorama.  Now, she is a girl.  So, as a girl, she logically assumed he was going to use it as a house for his Lego guys or something.  But, he is not a girl, which we have already covered.  To him, the use of the diorama for smashing made much more sense.

Yes, I do sometimes make allowances for things under the excuse of "boys will be boys."  But, this was not one of those times, because even boys need to have manners and understand how to respect other people and their property.  So, Carter apologized and then he had to go to bed early.  On a family movie night.  You would have thought his world was coming to an end, and I suppose in his 7 year old eyes it probably was.

But, we stayed strong and sent him anyway.  I'd rather have him sentenced to early bedtime at 7 than prison at 17.  Just sayin...