You can’t always get what you want………..

This song keeps running  through my head after what went down this weekend.

Geli has been asking and asking and begging and pleading for a while now to be allowed to babysit her siblings, but there isn’t a chance in hell of Jeremy being allowed to stay home without adult supervision…….and……honestly up until Sunday afternoon, I’d not even entertained the thought of Geli and Xan being at home by themselves.

Jon and I decided in Sunday afternoon to pop out and get a coffee with the two boys, and left the girls under penalty of death to not answer the door or the phone unless it was Jon’s cell number on the call display screen.

We had a nice coffee and then stopped in at a store, and then headed home when I got a call from my sister asking where we were when would we be home from shopping…..?

Hmmmmm, how did she know….well the girls had told her…..apparently our “Don’t answer the phone EVER unless it’s Dad.“, translated into “Oh, but if you’re curious ’cause the person calls twice in a row, and it says unknown caller, and you’re really wanting to figure out who it is, and it must be important ’cause they called twice!” then you could answer that one……I guess we still have a few kinks to work out.

Any how, that’s not the point of the story.  We made it home and the girls had done fabulously, and only created a giant freaking teeny tiny bit of a mess with blankets and popcorn in the TV room.  We had a chat about how “DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!”  meant “SERIOUSLY, DON’T ANSWER THE FREAKIN’PHONE ‘CAUSE THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES THAT IT WILL BE YOUR AUNT!”

Moving on, ’cause that still is not what I’m trying and failing to get at.  At the end of it all, it comes out that our children WANT to be latch key kids.  With the sheer number of latch key kids running around this world, our children are severly cheesed that they don’t get to have a key and come home alone to an empty house. 

It’s funny how you always want what you don’t have.  Our children have a home where both parents are home ALL THE TIME!  and all they can think about is how cool it would be if we were gone when they got home.

Of all the problems in life to have, this is one that I’m thrilled about.  Not that they don’t want us around, but that they have the good fortune of having us both around.  I’m not so thrilled that they don’t appreciate what they’ve got, but I am happy that they don’t have to deal with not having either of their parents around after school.  It must be so hard for both the parent and the child to not be able to be there for the after school time.  I can’t imagine and fortunately, right now I don’t have to.

Author: Patricia Culley

I'm the ringmaster of my own circus. Just trying to stay one step ahead of the monkeys. View all posts by Patricia Culley