I was nine years old when my parents gave their first and only big garden party. My mom had bought all these little kerosene lanterns to hang around the garden.
I wanted to do my part and hung one of my mom’s pretty scarves on each and every lantern. To filter the light through the colored silk, and through the veils with glitter.
My mom caught me before I had covered the fifth lamp or so, so only five of her favourite scarves had a burned hole smack dab in the middle of them.
She never said a word about the incident, I have to hand her that. I felt very bad myself when I saw the holes; I loved those scarves as much as she did.
i hate to bum you out, but for future reference, there is a very good chance that you can recover erased photos if you have not taken any additional photos. The delete process just modifies the file directory and doesn’t normally delete the files themselves. Even if you do take additional photos, there is a good chance of recovering photos that haven’t been written over. Check the internet for file recovery software.
Prized possessions? Like my first guitar being dropped when she knew she wasn’t supposed to touch it? The gorgeous plaster copy of King Tut’s death mask that she wasn’t supposed to use as a climbing frame? Or my late Grandfather’s set of six different coloured glasses (the three remaining are in the garage)? My originally un-crayoned copy of Wind in the Willows that my mother was given when she was six and then passed on to me?
But then again, she made a really good plasticine model of Gromit after watching The Curse of the Were-rabbit and when it fell off the table, I accidentally stood on it, so we’re even.
This is my take on it - then again, I don’t have many “prized posessions” within reach other than occasionally some fine china which, while expensive, is nice but not irreplaceable. I can’t speak to teenagers, but my toddler does destroy things on purpose just to push my buttons. It doesn’t happen very often - when he’s ticked, he’d rather just scream randomly.
So it’s not so much that he destroys things but that he destroys things deliberately, carefully selecting those items that you wanted to use, read, etc. because he knows that’ll really piss you off. Unfortunately, at 2, “punishment” such as timeouts are relatively meaningless. Not that you just have to take it, but with my son, any punishment will be mostly revenge on my part, which is completely inappropriate.
A great example happened over the weekend. Our son was mad at us for cutting his hair. He loves being held, loves being kissed and hugged, but he loathes having his head and face held still. Unfortunately, unless you don’t mind nicking him, confining him is a necessity. He let me know exactly how he fet about that when afterward I was telling him what a great job he did (and it was true for the most part) when he picked up my husband’s partially-read magazine which he looks forward to every week and, ensuring that I was watching him all the while, proceeded to calmly tear the page my husband was reading in half. I caught his hand just as he started, but he quickly finished the job. Toddlers being slippery little buggers, he twisted out of my lap and ran across the room, gleefully shredding the magazine until I caught up with him. I was livid.
[minor follow up]
Thanks for responding to my email, **QtM **- I appreciate it!
(sorry folks - not much to share beyond that, but I am going to see my doctor again about it!)
Not that this is a parenting thread, but I’m wondering what would happen if you ignored it, entirely. (Gritting your teeth the whole time, of course.) Since he does it to get a rise out of you, would he knock it off if he gets no reaction? Might be worth the sacrifice of a magazine or two.
My daughter broke our television before she was 2; I never knew it was possible to push on/off like that.
My prized possessions are still out of reach, because they destroy everything. It’s bizarre to me how they can pick up something they’ve never seen before and immediately use it in a manner for which it was NOT designed, thus damaging it. With sweet, adorable, soft, pudgy little fingers.
Oh lordy, you’ve just raised a very painful memory of the day I broke my mothers glass filagree vase. Which was a present from her mother. Who died when I was 2.
You’re probably right. He also does things like that so seldom that it’s not really worth getting worked up over. He tends to save the deliberate destruction for times when he’s really been wronged such as a haircut, shampoo or being pinned down for eye drops (he has pinkeye now - delightful). Otherwise, it’s just the random screaming, which we ignore with much success because it stops once we stop addressing it.
In keeping with the OP, I recall when I was about 8 and there was a terrible storm. The next day my sister and I woke to find that half a tree was down. What a wonderful place for a playhouse! Even better, there was leftover white paint from touchups my mom had done to the house - and what was a treehouse without paint? So we painted half the tree, most of the leaves, got bored and moved on to the driveway and then the garage floor, which for some reason needed to be white. It was just calling to us, as was the car. We were just raising our brushes to our burgundy station wagon when mom caught us.
We try not to keep items of great sentimental or financial value within reach, which, now that our kids are reaching school age, sometimes means confining them in a locked closet or room. So far we’ve been lucky, but I figure it’s just a matter of time.
Now, MiniWhatsit DID do a very colorful crayon drawing of a house and some trees (one of her better efforts, actually) directly on a freshly-painted wall in our dining room. I was not thrilled about this, but Mr. Clean Magic Eraser took it right off. Although you can still sort of see a faded spot where it used to be.
Let’s see. My boobs? Actually, they survived the first one, so I have my fingers crossed they will recover again after this second one is done with them. Right? RIGHT??
We have been lucky so far, but with two boys now I am sure our house will be destroyed in short order. I try to only get things that are washable. I did catch my 3 year old sticking toothpicks into a chair the other day though, so I am sure it is only a matter of time. He had no idea he was doing anything wrong, just merrily humming to himself as he poked them one by one through the upholstery.
He has catching up to do if he is going to destroy more stuff than our dog did as a puppy, though.
My mother was an antique dealer, so we grew up with very fragile stuff around the house and rarely broke anything. However, when my brother was just 2-3, he came in and told my mother he’d made their brand new car “a 'vertible, like Unca Dick’s car!” He’d pulled the headliner down. One thing we all learned was that stuff was just stuff. It can all be replaced, except for photos. It’s always a good idea to keep copies of photos in a different location, so they won’t be gone foreve. DLuxN8R-13 - Have you thought about looking on e-bay for replacements? Your mom would probably appreciate the sentiment if you replaced them. Or check Replacements Ltd.
Randy Selzer - A friend of mine always kept backup copies of his theses while we was working on them. Copy on his hard drive, a copy on disc and a disc copy offsite. Too much work to risk on a hard-drive failure (or well-meaning husband).
Reminds me of the old joke… A bum walks up a house, rings the bell and offers to do any odd jobs for cash. The homeowner says, “Why don’t you paint the porch? There are brushes and paint in the garage. I’ll give you $20 when you’re done.” The bum agrees and ambles away. An hour later, he rings the doorbell again and says he’s done. The homeowner pays him and the bum adds, “By the way, that wasn’t a Porsche, it was a Mercedes…”
I can’t think of any prized possessions our boys (now ages 11, 8 and 5) have destroyed - they’re pretty well-behaved, and we keep valuable breakables safely away from them. But our eldest spit up all the time in his first six months of life, and I had a lot of sweaters and sweatshirts permanently stained.
Twenty-five years ago, my brother and I broke a beautiful antique plate my mother had displayed on the wall. It was one of a set of six, hanging in a hexagonal grouping in the dining room. And we… uh, well…
We were playing with a Frisbee in the house.
Naturally, looking at the shattered pieces, we were horrified. And, equally naturally, being kids, we frantically planned our evasion. No way we were going to own up if we didn’t have to.
“Can we glue it back together?” Nope, not a chance.
“Wait! She has more!”
The set of six hanging on the wall was merely the best six out of a total of maybe twelve. They were old, and variously faded; she’d picked the most attractive six for the wall display and set aside the remainder. So we dug them out, carefully scrutinized each and compared them to the broken fragments, and put into the empty space what we thought was the best of the available plates.
I have no idea if she ever noticed. If she did (probably so: the woman has scary kid-psychic powers), she never said anything.
I’ll second (third?) this. 3 boys and only one thinks past his nose, but even then it’s too late.
Tomorrow after my coveted half-day at work, I will be replacing 2 interior doors. I don’t mind them playing the Battle for Middle Earth. I do mind the sword holes in the doors, even if they are artfully camouflaged with the hamper or a tower of stuffed animals. Some of the events over the years: stickers beautifying my iron backed piano, brand new, as in 2 hours in my house, light tan ottoman colored with lipstick, a fossilized statue of several squids, the rear of one squid broken off - it survived in that state for millions of years, but couldn’t survive my Rhino (so nicknamed because he walks into a room and shit breaks). It’s amazing what can happened when you are swapping laundry, answering the phone, or fixing a sandwich.
My precious few items I don’t want touched, are in my “off limits to anyone under 30 or if you have 4 legs” bedroom. Except for that hand blown glass Tinkerbell my oldest picked out for me for my birthday 12 yrs ago. That was felled by a game of football in the front room. Any other of the items on the shelves/bookcases in that room wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t recall crying, but I did keep all the pieces on my desk for a couple of days before finally tossing them away. (He bought me another one and when trying to peg his brother with a hacky sac ball, broke that one.)
My niece at about that age poked a knitting needle into her mom’s exercise ball-- to see what would happen. Mommy was pissed. Although in the grand scheme of things, an exercise ball is not terribly difficult or expensive to replace, niece was more or less old enough to have known better.
When oldest was 3, she wanted to play tea party. Not content using water in her teacups, she filled them with my last-night’s-but-I-never-finished-it coffee. Not content eating air cookies, she shredded and dunked into the coffee about 15 comics.
Yes, a valuable lesson was taught. If it’s important, don’t let it near the kids!!
