How to Terrorize Your Children

I'm not called the mean mom for nothing. Grant doesn't like to come over to my house because he is forced to take 'naps' and apparently the methods I use to make sure my children understand the consequences of their actions instills fear into their very souls.

You may remember when Tate decided to pull the fire alarm in the Pita Pit. At the time (and the random times I have thought about it since, for example whenever I go into the Pita Pit and see that they haven't replaced that little glass bar), I wasn't completely sure if Tate thought he got any punishment that day or it was just a cool day to see the firemen come to a restaurant. Fast forward almost 6 months later and I have my answer.

On Tuesday, we head over to Holley and James' house to have dinner. Shortly after we arrived their fire alarm went off because of some smoke out of the oven. The boys came running upstairs wondering what the noise was and we explained it was the fire alarm. Tate was silent, just looking around, Holley asked him several times if he wanted some milk with dinner and all he could ask her was "Why did the fire alarm make that noise?". He could barely eat but kept looking around, waiting for something to happen. Finally he asked us when the firemen were going to get here. We explained how the firemen only come in emergencies to homes, etc. He eventually finished his dinner on Andy's lap. When dinner was done and Grant went downstairs to play with his trains, Tate would not go. He refused to be away from us, and continued to ask us over and over and over again why the alarm went off and where the firemen were.

Tuesday nights Holley and I have our swim class so we headed out to that while Andy drove the kids home. I found out from Andy later that Tate started asking if we had fire alarms in our house and that he was afraid they were going to start 'screaming'. He is afraid to go into rooms by himself that have fire alarms and is constantly telling us that he is afraid they are going to start 'screaming'. He is not sleeping well and I think he's having nightmares because this morning he woke up crying and when I asked him why he was crying he told me it was because Sydney's (a girl at school) mom came and started 'screaming' at him.

So now I know. I'm not only the mean mom but apparently I like to damage my children's psyche as well.