Fire Alarm

We were at the farewell party for the Beans in August.

It was towards the end of the night and we were catching up with some people we hadn't seen in a while when I suddenly heard the fire alarm go off.

Within seconds, I said "that was Isaac".  I just had this gut feeling and knew it had to be him.  And sure enough, I was right.  As everyone began filtering out of the building, I ran to the hallway to find an hysterical 4 year old boy.  He was clearly scared, and knew he had done something, but didn't know how to fix it.  As he was trying to push the lever back up, he was screaming bloody murder, but quickly transferred his fright to me, yelling "why did you DO that?"  amongst other screams that I can't remember anymore.

  I scooped him up and carried him outside while he was still screaming his head off.  When we got outside, I mentioned to a couple of people that it was Isaac's fault, but he was not happy about that, and started to deny it.  I realized he must have been embarrassed, so I waited until we got to the van to say any more about it.

In the van on the way home, we tried to talk more about it and asked how he felt when he pulled it- if he was scared or whatever, but he refused and kept saying no, and it was clear he didn't want to talk about it.

The next day I brought it up again and asked how he felt when he pulled the alarm, and he finally admitted that he didn't know it was going to do that and he was embarrassed and didn't want everyone to know he had done it.  At least he was finally able to talk about this traumatic event!  I've noticed with Isaac lately that he is not trying to be bad or mischievous, but often times is in his own world with such a wild imagination that things just happen.  He does feel really bad when he does something wrong and would rather just cover it up so nobody knows, but at least he seems to care more than he used to about following rules.

The Haircut

It was Sunday morning, and I heard Isaac and Miriam playing in her bedroom while Max and I were still waking up.  It is not unusual for the boys to go in and entertain Miriam or get her out of the crib before we even get up.  This particular morning I heard them playing "Dad and Son", a game they play almost every day, and I've always just thought it to be super cute since Miriam is a girl, but she has to play the "son".

Finally I got up and wanted to get her out of bed, but her door was locked.  Hmmm, why would Isaac lock the door?

I asked him to unlock it right away, which he did.

When I walked in, I can't even described the feeling I had upon seeing Miriam.  I think at first I didn't believe it, but I just kept staring, and saw the scissors in his hands, and a nice short boy haircut on her head, so I realized it must be true.  I started screaming at him, No. . .NO. . . why would you DO this?  Of course Luke, Andrew and max came running in and started screaming at him as well.  Luke said "now she looks like a baby again!"

Luke and Andrew began to think of all the punishments Isaac could receive- one of them being that he gets spanked every day for it until her hair grows back.  Another punishment was that he doesn't get to eat or drink all day.

Max was upset that he could have poked her eye out.

I was just upset that the beautiful hair that I could now braid and put in pig tails of my one and only girl was now gone.

Isaac did get spanked for playing with the scissors and getting into mischief (again), but there was really nothing we could do to change the situation, so we had to just get used to it.

Of course, it was Sunday morning, so Max made mention of it when he got up to preach.  He said, "you may notice that I no longer have 3 boys and a girl, but 4 boys. . . "  and then went on to briefly tell the story.

I had to just remind myself it could be worse.  In fact it made me think of little kids that are going through cancer treatment that have no choice but to have no hair.  How blessed we are to have 4 healthy children.  Each day is a gift from God, and hair will certainly grow back.

Later that night when I was tucking Isaac into bed, I asked if he was trying to make her look like a son (as I suspected since they were playing "dad and son") and he said yes.  He clearly felt bad for what he had done and wasn't trying to do something bad.  In fact, he asked me if I would remind him every day to not cut Miri's hair, because he really does want to follow the rules, but as I've said before, he gets lost in his own little world, and doesn't even realize he is doing something that could get him into trouble.