Thursday, July 12, 2012

Recyclable Conclusions

This post is a lesson to myself about jumping to conclusions too quickly.  I'll be more specific before Fernando has a chance to point out my tendency to do this in every area of life:  Today's lesson is about jumping to conclusions regarding my child's seemingly-bad behavior.

It happens all the time with Violet - I begin to correct/reprimand/hoot-n-hollar at her before I realize that she was actually trying to help or do something good.  But this rarely happens with Daniel. Until today.

One of Daniel's chores is taking out the recycling.  He does it well, and seems to enjoy this little piece of responsibility.  I have taken to standing at the kitchen window and watching the whole thing go down, as it's just ridiculously cute to watch him march back and forth, in his own little world, sometimes fighting the bad guys along the way.  I love watching the lessons in logic unfold:  He has to figure out exactly how to get the lid to stay open while he dumps in various items (and then figure out how to retrieve the big plastic box he is supposed to bring back to me that he accidentally throw in every time.  Every time.)  

Today, he had completely four or five trips from the back door to the recycling bin, carrying a few items at a time.  Suddenly, I saw him throw an empty milk container towards the recycling bin.  And walk away.  

The "Uh UH not in my house!" kicked in and I threw the window open, and barked "Daniel!" before I saw what was going on.

Violet had joined him outside and wanted to help take out the recycling.  But she wasn't wearing any shoes.  So he decided to carry her.  But he couldn't carry her AND the recyclable item, so he tossed the milk carton ahead of them, then returned to the patio to retrieve his sister.  He carried her all the way to the bins and proceeded to help her recycle the milk carton.  Then he carried her back.

Be still my heart (and be shamed my jump-to-conclusions-brain).