It’s storming right now, so I am reminded of something that happened one stormy night a while back, this is a good one. It has to do with growing up, responsibility and parental endurance.
Our eldest son had started working at a pancake house and good for him. He met there, a girl whose name escapes me and is irrelevant to the story anyway but this particular night, our girls had an after school play cast party to go to, their Dad had a softball game to play and I was shuttling everyone to and fro. It also looked like a good possibility of severe weather and in the middle of all this, our son asked if this girl could come over. This would mean that they would be home alone for a while together. They had just met and I didn’t like it, neither did my husband but he told him it would be ok. He also told him that how he handled this would determine whether or not he could be trusted in this regard in the future. So leaving our son in charge of the house, himself, his guest and our pets, off we went.
In those days the children, especially the girls, were terrified of storms. I guess, according to their Dad, their Mother has a fear of them and unfortunately passed this on to the kids. So here I am, I drop my husband off at the ball field, go get the cupcakes we needed for the girls’ contribution to the party, go get them and take them to the party. On the way the sky is looking pretty ominous. Their Mother calls and tells them she is driving to the city the storm is heading for and of course got them completely upset. Great. So now I’m driving around attempting to calm them down and finally I do and I drop them off at their party. I then get a call from hubby that he’s the only one who showed up for his game, can I come get him. So I head to the ball field to pick him up, he’s drenched, its thundering and lightening all over the place and we head for the house as we have a while before we need to pick up the girls. Now it gets good.
We pull into the driveway and are headed off at the pass by our son. He informs us that one of our dogs is missing. One of our Goldens, an over weight, very sweet dog but not the sharpest knife in the drawer if you follow my meaning. So we ask the usual questions you ask…when did you last see her, when did you discover her missing, where all have you looked etc…and my husband, already soaked, takes off in the storm on his bicycle and I get in my car and we canvass the area for a while. I decided to eventually check back at the house and when I pull up I see my husband’s bike on it’s side in the front yard. Before I can make it to the front door, my husband bursts out the door, takes a look at me and says go see what our son has been up to. He takes back off on his bike. oh…kay…..
I go into the house and there sits an aggitated son, arms crossed, scowling at the TV set mumbling under his breath. I sat down and asked what was going on and as he turned toward me I saw it one big fat hickey on the side of his neck. A hickey, I wanted to throw up! I got this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach…but nevermind that…He starts in on me, “we were just kissing” I shot back that it looked to me as if it had been more than that and now I say things I’m not particularly proud of but aside from clarifying for him that the first time he’s left home alone with a girl, this is what happens, and that it would be a cold day far far down South before he would be trusted in that way again I also went on to say that (I refer to her from this point forward as hickey girl) would not be welcome back for a while and certainly not without us being home. I confirmed what I thought I knew, that they had known each other for about 3 or 4 days. I think I said a thing or two about respect for himself, for our home, for our directives and then I said don’t even get me started about what I think of a girl who does such things with a guy she doesn’t even know. I leave him and head back outside to sit for a bit and reflect.
As I sit there, I cool down and remember what it was like to be a teenager. I went back in and apologized to our son if I said anything out of line, but explained to him that I cared about him, how he turns out, his reputation and all of that and I would continue to let him know when I thought he was messing up. I said that now, because he hadn’t had his mind on making sure he let the dogs in and out properly, and had his mind on fooling around with hickey girl, one of our pets was missing out in a bad storm and we might never find her; that he’d have to live with that should this be the outcome. I did also say that if he liked this girl, I was sorry if I seem to have over reacted, but that he had to try to understand that he is our responsibility, any girls he had over were also our responsibility and he had work to do to regain our trust. He was quiet and sulky but I think he appreciated that I came back in and said what I said.
I went back outside, checked my watch to see how long before we had to pick up the girls and tell them about the dog, sat on my bumper and called my husband to check on him to see if there was any sign of our missing canine. Mind you, this entire time it is severe thunderstorm weather. The thought of her lost out there in that alone was terrible. What we were also up against was that not too long before this, we had been forced to have this dog’s sister put to sleep. She turned out to have had a very advanced case of thyroid cancer, she was only 3 years old and it made us all very sad so we were still smarting from that. Neither one of us wanted to now have to tell the girls that we’d lost yet another dog. Problem is, when riding around and around looking for a lost animal it isn’t usually as if that animal is stationary just sitting still waiting for you to find them. You’re hunting a moving target, It’s not a hopeful situation. I go get the girls, my husband comes in and explains to them that our dog has gone missing. There were tears as we expected, our son after getting on his bike and riding around a while too, had put himself to bed; we put the girls to bed (oh and this is a school/work night by the way) and my hubby went back out to look for her some more. I went outside after a while, sat back out on the bumper of my car where apparently I do some of my best thinking. I called and called for her, it was getting late and the weather wasn’t improving. Then I had a thought and I dialed up my husband. I asked him if he’d looked in the back yard. He said he’d looked back there; that he’d left the light on and the roll up door open in case she somehow got back into the yard, she could get in and out of the weather. I said that I realized it was a morbid thought, but had he checked the pond back there. He said no, he hadn’t. I had him stay on the line and I walked around to the back of the house to the pond. It was dark, but I looked as best I could and didn’t see any sign of her. As I stood up, I heard something, it came from inside the unfinished part of the basement where my husband had left the door up. I’m on the phone still, I follow the sound to underneath the staircase where we store our luggage. And what do you think I see? I see a big pink nose and two big brown eyes. As I get closer I can see that she’s under there, apparently she was afraid and had gone in there for cover but had knocked suitcases down blocking her exit. I get closer. and I see that fat sausage shaped body…whole hind end wagging….I said to my husband, I found her, come on home. In searching and calling for this animal for most of 6 hours at this point, it never once occured to her to sound off for the love of God.
So I bring her in and the first thing I do is wallk her into our son’s room…he opens one eye, looks at me and I said somebody wanted to let you know she’s home and I let the dog lean up on his bed. He gave her a rub on the head and a hug, looked up at me and whispered thanks. I then took her upstairs and woke up the girls to let them know she was home and ok. They were glad to see her of course. My husband got home, patted her on the head and said dumb dog. None of the kids had any real appreciation for what their Dad did that night and for how long. He and I sat back and had a couple of good stiff drinks after all that. Heck with the hour, what a night. We left the hickey girl situation alone, and in about a week they were over each other.
Lessons learned
- When the time comes and one of the kids asks if a “friend” can come over and it means they’ll be alone, if you don’t feel good about it, say no. Probably because we were in a hurry that night, we didn’t, and you see how that worked out for us!
- If its storming, regardless that you have activities scheduled, maybe you should just stay home.
- If you say something to your kids when you’re upset and after you think about it, you wish you’d not said it at all or at least that you had said it differently, apologize and go correct the situation. By doing so not only do you gain their respect by admitting when you are wrong, but by showing them you can do that, you set a good example for them that hopefully they will follow in their own relationships.
- Remember they are kids and take it easy on them. They are going to screw up, didn’t you? I did. 🙂
Good Step Mom
