Noah is on Spring Break this week and while I was able to work from home on Monday and hang with him, I couldn’t yesterday.  He was suppose to go to the babysitter’s with Zoë.  Well, I emailed my hubby mid-morning to remind him of something and he told me he kept the kids home.  My first thought was a bit of irritation–really keeping them home.  I know how it went down.  Noah cried that he didn’t want to go and then Zoë joined in to (and she has him wrapped around his little finger) and so on.  My husband does not deal well with the crying and if they do it long enough he usually gives in–this irritates me because once the crying and whining starts–NO is always the answer from me.  ALWAYS.

Then my irritation quickly turned into amusement.  Because not only did he have to balance work and the kids–I have class on Tuesday nights and wouldn’t be home to save him from his poor decision making until it was about bedtime.  I know it’s hard to make your kids unhappy–but that is so totally what a parent’s job is 3/4 of the time.  I would love to be able to give my kids everything they want and to make life easy and happy all the time.  But that is not reality and to be honest–that isn’t doing them any favors.  I know Noah doesn’t like going to the sitter’s because he is the oldest one there because it is mostly little kids.  He doesn’t have the freedom there that he does at school and I get it, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let him stay home because he doesn’t like it.

I know…maybe that is harsh and I should be more accommodating but I can’t be.  I don’t think that would be good for my son.  Because there will be days he doesn’t want to go to school or work and he’ll have to regardless and I believe that he can understand that now.  I also don’t want to start to condition him to the idea that he can cry and get his way–I am not about to go down that road and I am going to beat that into my darling husband as well.  Zoë tried it this morning–“Daddy I am going to miss you.” with tears streaming down her little fact.  Oh it just grabs your heart–but then I tell her lets go and she is fine.  She has learned that crying gets her what she wants and that has got to stop.

I am hoping my husband learned his lesson–the kids will not be staying home this summer–at all.  But I still find it a little bit funny.