Bad, bad parents

Last night we attended a Rosary held for the oldest member of Dave's family, a sweet, lovely woman who died at the ripe age of 94.  She'd only been in assisted living for about a year and then only because her body was giving out, not her mind.  This means she lived in her own house until she was 93.  I only hope I'll be so fortunate.  I knew very little about Josie and rarely held a conversation with her (my guess is I always talked a bit too fast and she was too polite to ask me to slow down), but every time I saw her she would take my face in her hands, kiss me on the cheek and give me a big hug, always with a smile on her face.

Now I'm not Catholic, so the whole service was, as usual, just beyond my grasp.  Catholicism is very ritualistic and if you don't know the rituals, you feel like a total outsider.  So it was no skin off my back to stay in the lobby with Alex until the service was over.  And at first he was good, I thought, and actually seemed to understand the concept of whispering.  It wasn't until after the service that it all went to hell in a handbasket.

Dave has one of those families that only gets together for weddings and funerals.  And while this was a somber affair, no one there was sobbing their eyes out or crying about the injustice of an untimely death.  Josie went the way we all hope to go.  And so, after paying our respects, we all enjoyed eachother's company and caught up.  The bigger kids sat and played together and Alex was really the only munchkin gremlin.  And the strange thing is, neither Dave nor I noticed that he was being a total craphead.  It. did. not. register. with. us.  We were busy talking with the family and that thing happened where I thought Dave was on deck and maybe he thought I was on deck and so we both kind of ignored the boy and did our own thing. 

It wasn't until we got back to the car that it hit us:  Alex was a holy terror.  Here we were at a funeral with a dead loved one in the room and he was literally running around, climbing on the pews, jumping in circles - you name it.  It was horrible.  And it was like Dave and I were paralyzed.  We just completely didn't notice it.  I mean, we noticed it, but it didn't register with us to care or to even stop him.  At one point, I was chatting with Dave's Aunt and Alex was five feet away from me and pulling open random desk drawers.  When he spilled one over, I was so busy having a conversation that as I bent over to pick it up, I didn't even punish him.  I'm pretty sure the conversation was even about what a wild child he is.

We feel like such idiots.  Total, complete morons.  We are THOSE PARENTS.  The ones who think their child is so sweet and adorable that they completely see past the totally OBNOXIOUS things their child is doing.  I don't blame Alex at all - he was just doing what he does best.  I blame us for not doing anything about it.  The strange thing is how we didn't even notice it until after the fact.  It wasn't until we were in the car that we wanted to crawl into our own graves.

Frankly, we should've seen this coming.

Comments

[David]

I really do feel ashamed.

[Heatherg]

HEY!

Cut yourselves some slack!

It happens to the best of us.

And wait until you have 2 that you have to chase after.....

That Alex sure is a little cutey!

[vetmommy]

Well, we all have our moments when we need to refill our own tank before we can devote the kind of attention it takes to reign a wild one in. Before I was a parent, I knew raising a toddler would require consistency; that it would be hard but you gotta enforce the rules. I just didn't know how FATIGUING it would be to enforce the rules 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year!

Your family will be laughing about Alex in a few years.

[kalisah]

awwww....but look how CUTE he looks! I forgive him.

[jennyonthespot]

:) I am frequently amazed at the things I don't notice, until someone pulls my kids from the top of something dangerous. It's not that I think my kids are perfect, it's that I'm so used to the chaos - I am not easily phased!