Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Bad parenting moment # 643 (My Saab Story)

Okay maybe not # 643, but they do seem to be frequent lately. This one though, is the worst so far.

So Josh has a new rock obsession. I don't mean leather-pants-eyeliner-long-teased-hair rock. I mean straight-up rocks. Stones, pebbles, boulders, doesn't matter. He loves them. Collects them everywhere we go, throws them, kicks them...rocks are his friends. They are now, however, my sworn enemies.

Yesterday, while I stood out front talking to my neighbor and her one year old son, Josh trolled around looking for rocks. He found one in her yard, and scratched the ENTIRE side of her new Saab with it. Not a little scratch - almost bumper-to-bumper...it looks like someone keyed it. It's bad. Really bad. So I've apologized - profusely - to both her and her husband. And they're taking it to a paint shop to find out how much it is so that we can pay for it.

So here's the executive summary:
1) I'm sometimes dumb and oblivious
2) Everytime I am, I pay for it dearly

So we're going to probably have to drop a grand (that we don't really have) to repaint the side of a car that was perfectly good before I went over there. And if I just paid better attention, the car would still be fine. If I put my foot down about rocks, the car would be fine. If I...if I...I can go on and on here. The bottom line is that it's not Josh's fault - he's 18 months old. He's not doing anything wrong on purpose. He was just chilling, playing with his stupid rocks. It's my fault - until he does understand, I should be helping him along. And I didn't. I feel like I let us both down. It just sucks. I know there will be a lot of these moments - I'm (gulp) not perfect, and I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. And Josh (double gulp) isn't perfect either, and he's going to make his own mistakes. I'm going to have to come to terms with this eventually.

For now, though, I'm just going to be sick over my negligence and the corresponding negative impact on my bank account.

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