The Perils (and Joys) of smart children

So last night I took James to soccer practice, I was in a good mood up to that point. Well I am not impressed by the coach of his team, all he has them do is scrimmage the entire time. And then he is out there playing with them, and showing off his skills. After 3 practices it is clear this guy is not going to take the time to teach them anything. Which makes me pretty mad, I expected this guy to take the time and actually coach, and it is clear he has some knowledge to teach.

So as we left I asked the boys where they wanted me to pick up dinner from, and James started making noise about eating at the restaurant rather than picking up drive thru and taking it home. When I told him that was not an option he made some comments about how I was lazy and I never did anything. Which put me in an even worse mood.

Then I got home, the house was a mess because Kim has been helping her mom and sister the last 2 mornings before work instead of picking up. Which I understand but no one wants to come home to a trashed house when they are already in a bad mood (except Tammy of course). And they screwed up my order at the drive thru... arrgh

So when I put the boys to bed, and their room was a disaster I kind of went off, not yelling but just explaining to James why I was so irritated and that I expected him to clean his room first thing when he got home from school on Friday. So I went back to feeding Emily and relaxing some.

When I put Emily to bed, I heard James call my name I looked in and their room was completely cleaned up. He had stayed up and thoroughly cleaned the room, and not just a throw the toys in the closet type cleaning. And when I looked in it just felt so good to see that he had understood my irritation and taken it to heart. He said he did it because he wanted to be able to play after school, which is partially true but I think he also did it because he felt bad about me being so upset.

So the perils came about because he thought I was just being lazy and said so, and the joys because he was able to recognize that he could do something to make me happy and took the time to do it.