Angels or Demons? Or Both?

When I was growing up, my dad had a bunch of catch phrases that he would use that my brother, B-Lo, and I made fun of constantly:

'If you put your mind to it, you can do anything you want' - Really? Anything? Because I'm 7, and I'd like to fly to the moon tomorrow. How can I put my mind to that?

'Do you want something to cry about? Because I'll give you something to cry about!' - Oh yeah? I'm pretty sure the fact that I'm crying and your standing there means that you already accomplished that.

'If you're going to do something, make sure you do it right. Don't do anything half-assed.' - B-Lo and I discussed the term 'half-assed' for approximately 9,757 hours during our childhood.

And my personal favorite,

'Go outside and pick up all of the sticks, pine cones, pine needles, rocks, and large blades of grass. I don't want to dull the blade on the lawnmower by actually cutting anything.' - I may have paraphrased there, but I assure you B-Lo would back me up on those events.

The point (other than the fact that my dad is crazy) is that not all parental advice sinks in when you want it to. And you might not know how much actually did hit home for another 15 or 20 years. Sometimes I wonder if anything is getting through to our boys. For the past couple of weeks, they've been absolute nightmares. Room's a mess, not listening to anything we say, fighting with Scarlett, fighting with Tori, fighting with each other; just being overall frustrating. For the last few weeks, we've been making them do physical labor as their punishments. Your room's not clean? Do 15 push ups. Talking back? Give me 25 sit ups. Fighting with each other? 5 minutes of wall sits. It was working too.....for awhile. But their fitness levels are increasing faster than we can up the punishment. The other day, I couldn't get them to do anything. I was super frustrated, so I made them do 75 push ups and 15 minutes of wall sits. They didn't even blink. They laughed the whole time. We've created indestructible monsters. If there was a kids version of American Gladiators, we'd have it in the bag. It got so bad that they needed a good old-fashioned butt whoopin. Rach took the boys with her to go run errands the other day and said they were acting up the entire time. Here comes the whoopin. I can't remember the last time we spanked them. I don't do any of the spanking because I'm already big and scary looking, and I don't want them to fear me physically. So Rach steps up to the plate. She'll usually hit me with whatever her tool of choice is just to make sure it doesn't hurt. Last night it was a wooden hanger. (I remember my mom grabbing the closest object. Didn't matter what it was. Sometimes it would even be something silly, like a roll of paper towels.) So Rach gave them a couple of licks each. Just enough to make a mark. (I remember the part I hated most about getting spanked was the bare ass-ness. I gotta say though, it was pretty funny seeing their tiny little red hineys. Not funny Ha-Ha, just funny Awww) And just when we think that nothing's getting through to them.......

Last night Rach was talking to Cole's teacher at their end of the year party about why Cole is going to a different school next year. (it's a much better school, and we can send all 4 kids there) Cole's teacher was telling Rach that she wished Cole would stay at their school because they needed his test scores. Apparently, he got the highest standardized test score in the school. She also said that Cole always associates himself with the good kids in class. He's had opportunities to get sucked into the bad crowd, but he just didn't.

Then I get home today and get this note from Gavin's teacher.



Wait, What? These are our kids? I guess maybe we don't have to wait 15 years to see if this stuff is getting through after all. But we'll still keep the hanger close by just in case.