When you have a child, there is no scarier sound than silence. One of our funniest memories is when our oldest daughter stole a cupcake off the counter when she was a toddler. We noticed her absence and the silence of the house. We started looking for her, only to hear a very loud, “Mmmm Yummy!” We found her kneeling behind our counter covered in chocolate frosting, a trail of crumbs around her.
Like any parent, we’ve had those frightening moments, where you no longer hear your child and you just know they are up to no good. Other times, they are hiding something or quietly pooping in their diaper behind the couch. Those strange, eerie silences happen to every parent.
Our worst moment was shortly after our youngest was born. I was about two weeks postpartum and fortunate enough to have an easy baby. I was exhausted of course and basically doing nothing but breastfeeding all day when my brother-in-law and niece stop in for a surprise visit. Their visits meant a lot to us, they truly did but on this particular night, I wasn’t feeling well.
I held it together, put our baby in the bassinet next to the couch and attempt to make conversation before finally needing to lie down. Meanwhile my niece and oldest daughter who was about three at the time are running wild through our house. We’ve always trusted them together and my husband finally tells them that they can go upstairs for a few minutes. As I’m lying on the couch, I remember thinking that this may or may not be a good idea but I let him handle it. I’m always helicoptering anyway and tonight, I’m just exhausted!
We hear them playing upstairs, my niece calling down to us assuring us that everything is alright. I doze off and then suddenly I wake up, realizing the house is unusually silent. I look over at my husband and brother-in-law, they too, look at me strangely. There is a strange, eerie silence to our normally chaotic household. We can no longer hear the voices of our little children. We hear absolutely nothing…
In a moment of madness, we jump up from our seated positions and go racing up the stairs. We open up my daughter’s bedroom and what greets us is the most horrific mess I have ever encountered. I’m well known for having a big mouth and I make no apologies for it but for the first time in my life, I’m struck completely speechless. I mean, I can hardly utter a word.
The girls had destroyed the room. Every toy box had been upended. The closet doors were hanging off their hinges, everything that had been neatly stacked in the closets was now strewn all over the floor. The clothing had all been ripped off of the coat hangers. Fancy dresses and tulle tutus lay on the floor, amid stuffed animals and Duplo Legos. The bed sheets and blankets had been ripped off. The mattress was even pulled off the bed. The girls were jumping on it amid the aftermath of an apocalyptic decimation of the room.
My niece gets the most frightened look on her face because she knows what she helped create and that she’s in trouble. My daughter looks hopelessly guilty. I’m still speechless. A few guttural groans escape my mouth and then I notice that the brand new bright pink curtains we had just put on the window were ripped off, the pole was broken and the blinds were bent. It would all need to be replaced.
I could have gotten angry. I could have yelled or lamented my very existence as a parent. Instead, I burst into tears.
After the initial outburst of raw emotions, we have a stern talk with the girls and they both help us clean up. Amazingly, they were both great helpers. With the exception of the blinds and curtains, everything was put back together. Being a parent requires extreme forgiveness, especially when children are young. We did take partial blame in the incident. We shouldn’t have let them go upstairs unattended. I mean, really, what were we thinking?
It was a parenting blunder and a learning lesson for the two girls. Though it took a few months to truly get over the shock of that room disaster, we now laugh over it. Most of my mom friends have dealt with worse disasters, permanent markers on the walls, spilled laundry detergent over the carpet or flooded toilets. In the end, they’re just kids who are learning, growing from their mistakes and at the end of the day, a destroyed room really doesn’t matter. Forgiveness and understanding does!
As difficult as it is, embrace the crazy, every disastrous moment!
