Take your Eyes off them for a Second - DISTRUCTION

Today, being in the 60s was too lovely to be inside.  We had the kids outside for hours and hours today.  So long they they started to get bored and wanted to go back inside to play with the plethora of toys.  Mean Mommy, who was sitting on the front porch working on Sinterklass rhymes, said no.  It was too wonderful outside to go inside yet.  We had not been able to play outside like that in Chicago in many many weeks.  I should have realized that their cries of being bored could not lead to good things.  They started playing some strange game with two palm-sized rocks.  I was only half listening to them as they moved down the steps.  Then, something finally filters into my brain that they said "let's wash the car", and it started the wheels turning until I slowly, so slowly realized they were washing the car with ROCKS.  I jumped out of my rocking chair, once I suspected, and did a fair amount of yelling "did you actually touch the car with the rocks, or were you just pretending?" etc.  I said stuff like "rocks will scratch the car, did you scratch the car", at which point Wyatt is frantically rubbing the car with his hand - apparently trying to wipe the scratches off the car.  Yes, indeed, they had washed the car with rocks.  Scratches all over.  Circular scratches all on the hood, long scratches along the side, some in the back.  Wyatt starts screaming and crying because his hands were dirty.  Zach is screaming "are we in trouble?" and "am I getting a spanking?".  I keep saying "I don't know, I need to talk to DaU."  I take Wyatt into the house to clean him up, and Zach is following me, screaming his two questions the entire time.  Everyone is staring at me about what is going on.  I don't have any idea how to handle this, so I defer to Art.  I say, "you need to go outside and see what they did to the car".  We decide that they did not do the damage either knowingly, or deliberately, and they would not get punished, but would turn this into a learning event.  Art talked with them in depth about no ever touching cars, that they are not toys, etc etc etc.  Then, he said he was going to go inside for a bit, leaving them on the front steps to think about what he said, and was going to ask them questions to make sure they learned from this.  When Art came back out, Zach immediately starts crying and saying "I'm still thinking".  So they repeated the stuff Art told them, and then we decided they should have to wash the car FOR REAL as punishment.  And so they did.

A minor part of the damage - I need to add a picture of the hood damage - imagine circular scratches like this all over the hood.

Art helping Wyatt wash

Wyatt and Zachary washing the car

Boys giving it their best cleaning job

Both very happy to be doing something good for the car

They worked on the entire car, as far up as they could reach, which took well over 20 minutes.  Never complained.  They both were glad to be able to do something to try and make it all right again.  Of course they could not get the entire car, so Art finished washing the car while I took the boys in and gave them a shower.  We were so relieved they did this to OUR car, and not Janneke's, or Opa & Oma's NEW car!

The "best" part of all this was that I was sitting there, not more than 15 feet away when all of this happened.  Parent of the year award goes to me! :)  Sigh.