Keep the list short- REAL life

A few days ago in the car, Kristopher and Brianna were in the third row with their usual exchange of "she touched me, she hit me, she's touching my chair, she picked her nose, she's gonna get boogers on me, she keeps looking at me" all the while egging Brianna on to get an even bigger rise out of him. And yes, half of that is said through laughter from Kristopher- but he really is mad about it! LOL

The drive from church to home is just over 10 minutes and we'd just picked Kristopher up from school. Five kids in the car. Kristopher is the only one that talks much. Of course the other kids have some words (some of them) but Kristopher carries the conversation and sometimes likes to fill in the blank silence with his own narration of events.

But the kicker that day was this: "Mom, when Daddy gets home I'm going to tell him all the bad things that Brianna is doing."

Yikes. Really? Is he keeping track? (wouldn't surprise me)

And then it made me think... where did he get this idea?

Some days, at the end of a long day... when Mike walks in the door and says "how was your day" and finds Kristopher in time-out for the fifth time in 30 minutes because he's not listening again or he's not paying attention to what he's doing and someone got hurt, or, or, or... then sometimes Mike gets to know just why it is that dinner's not even been thought about, there's still Kix on the kitchen floor from breakfast, lunch dishes on the table including a cup or two of half-full milk cups, the younger kids aren't wearing pants since their last diaper change was in a hurry and I didn't put their shorts back on (but yes, it's time for another diaper change) and the family room and porch look like not 4 or 5, but maybe 20 or 30 children have been let loose including overturned children's chairs, the TV running recorded Little Einsteins and me sitting in the middle of it all not having showered that day, hair thrown up in a rubberband and thinking "thank God this day is over... Mike is home..."

Well then, seems like the result of a long or difficult day of my own... weeks later... might be playing out in the 'list' that my son wants to keep for his Dad about what his sister has done.

So our conversation went like this:
"Kristopher, you don't need to share what Brianna did wrong with your dad, do you know why?"
"no, why"
"because Brianna's already been told no, and she's stopped. Not only that, but when we get home, Brianna will get out of the car and go down for nap, and you will go inside and finish your lunch and have a rest, and when everyone wakes up, we will all have a nice time playing together. So in 5 hours when Daddy gets home, this will be something that's long gone and we want to start fresh when we can."
"ok"

And that was it. A good reminder for me, keep the list short. Start fresh when you can...