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News Alert! “6 Year Old Burns Down Apartment Building”

Hey Mommies,

That is exactly what the newspaper headline would read: News Alert! “6 Year Old Burns Down Apartment Building”. First mommies, let me apologize for my absence I’ve been kind of blocked and busy, you know what I mean? News Alert, I’m back and boy, do I have a story for you! This should really be a news alert because my child (Xavier) tried to burn down our apartment.  If I could video tape every moment to my life it would make you laugh and cry at the same time. My own, real life reality show!

So, this is what happened.   Yesterday while the kids are getting ready for school I was in my bedroom getting my clothes on. All of a sudden our smoke alarm in the hallway goes off; I didn’t smell anything so I’m thinking that the thing has malfunctioned or something. I’m reaching for anything and everything to shut this thing off, pencils, hangers, nothing would reach, it’s early in the morning, and the dog is howling at the alarm, the kids are at my feet screaming “It’s too loud, it’s too loud!” For a minute I thought I was in a scene of a movie. Finally, I just get a picture frame and start fanning at the thing like a mad woman.  When I get the alarm to stop, I started to smell this hint of burn smell but, it’s not like your normal burn smell, it was a burning plastic smell.

Yes, NEWS ALERT! PLASTIC is burning. I’m looking around the room because I don’t see anything on fire. Then I think, well maybe something outside is burning (the window was open).  I started to walk into the kitchen when I looked down to see a small trickle of smoke coming from the garbage can.  I see the side of the garbage can melting, paper burnt and the trash bag is stuck to the side. OMG! News Alert! This child has set something on fire and put it in the garbage.  NOW….. Mommies…..in this very moment what are you thinking? What would you have done? What would you have said?

How did I handle it you ask? Well, I went BA-LIS-TIC! When I realized which child had committed this act of vandalism (after he lied to me and said he didn’t do it), I lost my mind for a moment.  I began to yell, I wanted to know what he’d put in there, what did he burn, what did he burn it with, questions were flying so fast the poor boy didn’t have a chance.  Sooooo many thoughts were going through my head I thought I was going to have a breakdown.

Mommies, have you ever been so angry and in disbelief in what your child has done you black out for a moment and when you come to you realize you may have looked like a maniac in front of your kids?  Anger was taking over me like the hulk and I had to get out of this child’s presence or I couldn’t be responsible for my actions.  News Alert! I needed to get me emotions under control immediately because by this time I have to take the kids to school.

Now mommies, let me ask you this, how would you have handled this situation? After I dropped them off I started to feel a little guilty because of how I reacted, why do we do this to ourselves? I didn’t commit the crime however I feel the worst.  My daughter was crying the whole time (she’s the oldest child and most sensitive), and when I asked her what she crying for, she responded in tears” I’ve never seen you that mad, mommy!”  My heart broke a little because she had to witness something that I could have totally controlled.  I just simply told her that playing with fire is unacceptable and would not be taken lightly and reminded them how dangerous that simple act of curiosity could have turned out.  I asked him if the fire scared him, he said “yes”, in a real sheepish voice (I hate when he does that because when he wants to speak clearly he can). I told him that we would talk about it later when I cooled down a little more.  Then I went home and cleaned my whole house out of frustration.

Just another day in my wonderful career of motherhood!