Them Darn Kids

The last couple of weeks them 3 kids of mine have been trying my patience. Now don’t get me wrong I have 3 good young uns. They work hard, do not too bad in school and listen about as good as any kid listens. The problem is they take my stuff (tools) and don’t put them back. What got me going on this post is a bunch of incidents that have happened over the last couple of days. My boy is a typical 9 year old. We live in the country so he has to make his own fun. No young fellas his age next door. We don’t encourage TV and video games as a form of entertainment. So what is a fella to do? Well last night I came into the house from the shop about 9:30. Usual night for me. As I come in I meet my oldest daughter and notice 3 of my 4 bale hooks are missing from their hook in the garage. Ask her where they are. She tells me she last seen her brother with them at the round bales. Well this is the last straw. I head into the house and find him snuggled down in his bed sawing logs to beat the band. Wake him up. Where’s the bale hooks. He tells me he had them out on the round bales and was using them for steps so he could play on the bales. Ok, go get them. Yep, get up, get dressed and go get them and put them back where they belong. So he does. I was hot. One thing I didn’t mention in my introduction is I got a bit of a temper. Same deal the night before with my oldest daughter. I come into the garage and there is the electric fence stuff all messed up layen on the shelf and bench. She was doin some fence repairs and when she finished she just left the stuff scattered. What do ya do with kids like that? Foster home? Ground them for a month? Well after I get my bale hooks in their rightful place I go into the house to sit and have a cup of coffee before I go to bed. The kids are always bringing papers home from school and yesterday was no different. One of them had brought a pamphlet about crystal meth home. I picked it up and started reading. While reading I got to thinking about my kids. Now these three know what a days work is. My boy is up at 5:30 every morning feeding chickens. He does anything you ask. The more you heap on him the harder he works. Girls are the same. Both can cook and bake and sew, can process broilers, fence, tend animals etc, you get the picture. All three have outside work to give them some spending money. I don’t give them no allowance. Don’t believe in it. You work you get paid. That’s the way the world works. Even for kids. Don’t want them getten the idea somebody owes ya a livin. On Saturday we took my sons alum. can collection and in. A years worth of collecting and crushin cans netted him $123 dollars. He knows what a dollar is worth that is for sure. I know they ain’t doing no drugs because they don’t have the time or money. Well I am sitten there drinking my coffee and I turns to the wife and says I may have overreacted with the boy a bit. She says yea, maybe a little. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not letting up on them. Still expect them to do what needs doin but maybe they I won’t send them to a foster home or ground them for 6 months. Maybe things aren’t that bad. They sure could be a lot worse after reading the pamphlet. Don’t believe its luck that has made them the way they are. In my opinion comes down to values and family support. I may blog on that some time.