Friday, January 16, 2009

Daddy I broke the window

October, 2008. Everyone else in the family was asleep, and I'd settled down to some crafting at the kitchen table, when I heard yelling upstairs. 

"Daddy! I broke the window!" 

Sobbing. Tears. 

My 9-year-old daughter was convinced she'd kicked the window from her bunk bed in her sleep and broken it. After I got over the initial annoyance, I decided that it was more likely a tree branch had blown into it and broken it. I had to fight my way into her room, though, as she had piled stuff in front of her door. So I yelled at her about that. 

4 comments:

  1. That sounds intense! The window was actually broken? Did the crash wake her up? Did she freak out and pile stuff in front of the door to hide from you, then change her mind and cry out for you? I'm trying to imagine how I'd react when I was 9 if a window suddenly broke in my bedroom while I was alone in there. Scary stuff!

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  2. It was intense, but you gotta remember that this kind of thing -- kid hollering excited, parent countering with attempt at bored nonchalance -- is a daily occurrence, to the point of exaggering the roles -- the more excited she was, the more calm I was pretending to be, although I did yell at her about stupid stuff like the clutter, because I HAD been woken up in the night.

    She didn't have to pile anything, she already had piles. I think the crash woke her up, yes.

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  3. Ah, I gotcha. I thought she had blockaded the door after the window was broken, and that took the whole thing to kind of a strange place for me. :)

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  4. This was a prime opportunity to talk to her about boogeymen or tree monsters and how they gravitate toward cluttered rooms.

    Then again, she is nine. It might not work.

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