7 important lessons from the permanent marker death threat on my wall

I was a little surprised to find out that my well behaved though sometimes sneaky 11 year old son was the perpetrator in this crime. He's the one who gets in to trouble for things like ignoring me, "forgetting" to do something or as I may have mentioned, ignoring me. When I asked him why he chose to use the door and a permanent marker to threaten his brother his response was "I guess I wasn't thinking". Initially I was outright pissed. I sent him to bed and told him he was grounded. Then muttered a few classic mom statements while leaving his room during which he listened, responded respectfully but didn't really react. Then I did the guilt thing. You know, what did I do wrong? How could this happen? I'm losing control of my household! He's going to be 17 and sentenced to prison for 45 years before he even becomes an adult! Deep breath.

Once I discovered how to get it off the wall thanks to a Facebook post and another genius mom who suffered through a similar experience. Though her daughter is 3 and I seriously doubt it was in death threat form, she also suggested I not wait to have him do it. It's midnight, he was sleeping and so I set off to clean up HIS mistake. HIS mess. And how was this going to teach him anything?  I realized at some point in the process there were a lot of lessons for me in this experience.

1- A combination of scribbling dry erase marker over the top, dry wiping with a towel, then wet wiping with a magic eraser is the miracle combination. You're welcome.

2- Kids aren't very smart sometimes. He used his actual name. He said who it was to and who it was from. And in my most angry moment when discovering it I asked my husband "who did this!?"  So I guess I'm not very smart either sometimes.

3- This was definitely an attention seeking act. He's so busy with all of his new friends. I'm so busy with school work. When we are under the same roof, his brother with some special requirements to maintain good behavior gets most of my attention. Negative and positive behaviors from his little brother who happens to be on the receiving end of the death threat gets ALL my attention. And it's not that I don't know this. In fact a lot of nights I'm exhausted and miss the opportunity to tuck 11 year old in before he falls asleep because of the specific routine the littlest requires. Priority number 1 tomorrow will be to spend some time with 11 year old.

4- We really need to work on grammar. The difference between your & you're and close and clothes. For good measure we will also cover there, they're and their. And a well rounded lesson on punctuation.  We will have plenty of time to do this now that he's grounded from life.

5- Karma is a bitch. I spilled nail polish in my moms sink. Repeatedly ruined her towels with my hair dye. And left my food to rot in my room when I went back to college after a long weekend at home. I can only keep my fingers crossed that a future conversation with Cooper 25 years down the road will sound like this:
Him: Mom, I don't know what to do. Little man spray painted the side of my brand new car.
Me: Oh honey I'm sorry. Try a dry erase marker. Papa and I are watching wheel of fortune so text me and let me know how that works out for you.

6- Kids these days have it easy. When I was grounded I didn't get to go outside unless I was weeding the garden. I had my bike taken away and stayed in my room. Now days when grounding occurs it's no anything that plugs into the wall. The biggest fits get thrown over "all there is to do is ride my bike and play board games." Cry me a river and go get some exercise. 

7- I love that kid so much. There isn't one single thing he could do that could make me not love him or love him any less. Truth is when they are grounded they talk to me more, snuggle more, laugh more and by the end of the grounding it seems like we are closer. This isn't a new realization it's just something I remember each time we go thru this process. It often feels like a punishment to me to have to be the bad guy and take away all the fun. But as us parents know, and often forget, discipline is an important part of a child's structure and growing up. Discipline is love. And this kid is about to find out just how much I love him. Ha!

Take a deep breath Stephie. Send another apology to your mom. A thank you note to your friend. And keep on keepin on. You aren't so bad after all.