My biggest battle with Ben at the moment is daily pillages through the kitchen, where he helps himself to anything he wants, even if it means taking a chair from the dining room, pushing it into the kitchen, and climbing right onto the counter. It's to the point where nothing is out of his reach, and it's not like I can hang the knives and bags of marshmallows from the ceiling. (Child locks seem like an obvious answer, but I haven't had good results with those in the past, and as I start to see that "The creature can use tools..." I have a feeling they'd just be a big waste of time and money, and possibly end up causing damage to the cabinets in his efforts to open them.)
I had the Holy Grail of our home - the Candy Jar that stores all trick-or-treat goodies - stashed in a cupboard of the stove that I never opened in front of Ben, so he left it alone on the grounds he didn't know it was there. But the other day, I noticed David in the kitchen, with a handful of M&Ms, the Candy cupboard wide open, and Ben at his ankles. You know those moments where you want to do a slow-motion jump and yell "NOOOOOOOOOO!" to stop a disastrous event? I had one.
David assured me Ben wasn't going to try climb the stove, but he did the next day. I caught him just in time.
But I think I figured out the root cause of Ben's behavior. Genetics. Sure, it could be a cop-out, but I have to wonder if there's a relationship between our distant family tree and his continual pillages in the kitchen.
My great-grandfather on my Dad's side immigrated from Denmark, and ended up traveling through Alaska working as an engineer. He kept a journal of his adventures, including close encounters with bears, saving the life of a friend, and dealing with lack of resources, like eating pancakes cooked in gun oil. (His comment on that was something like: "It's not very tasty, but can be eaten if one is hungry enough.") At one point in the journals, he mentioned that, after a long journey with his older brother on foot through frigid Alaska conditions, their appearance, with their beards and long hair neglected during their travels, probably resembled their Viking ancestors.
When I read that, I thought "Huh, we have Vikings in the family." Then, a few months ago, David and I were watching a documentary about the Dark Ages of Netflix (yeah, because that's how we party around here) and they mentioned the Vikings and described them as a group of young men, essentially unemployed with nothing better to do, who sailed around the British Isles and pillaged and plundered where ever was convenient.
As we were watching, David said, "Wait...Vikings were just a bunch of thugs! They didn't have jobs, and got bored, so they went around and stole and broke stuff!" One king in Britain got the best of the Vikings and protected his cities by building walls around them. "So how did that go?" David said. "'Hey Olaf! This city didn't have a wall last time we were here.' 'Oh screw it, Soren. Too much work. Let's go raid the monastery down the river.'"
So as I got a feeling for Viking culture, and know we shared some of that DNA, I began to see Viking tendencies in my son. If he wants something, he takes it. If you take it back, there's no remorse or apology, it's "HEEEEEY MOM!" He makes no effort to be sneaky, but just helps himself.
For example, yesterday I caught him climbing on the counter and taking a bag of chocolate chips, I took it away and put it back, along with a scolding. Then I ran briefly ran upstairs to do something laundry-related, and came back down to find the empty bag of chocolate chips on the kitchen floor. While I was trying to figure out how he ate half a bag that fast, I went into the living room and noticed he had simply poured the bag into a bowl and was eating them in front of the TV. I took that away, and got a "HEEEEY MOM!" as if to say, 'I stole that fair and square!'
But Ben isn't the only Viking in the family. I have noticed my girls would have made excellent Viking women. While they don't always aid or abet their brother, they have no problem sharing in the spoils. Last night after the chocolate chip heist, I noticed some chocolate on Amy's face. Now even though she gave me a run for my money has a toddler, she's turned out to be a pretty good first grader, and her biggest vices are slacking on cleaning her room and forgetting to use her fork at dinner. When I asked her if ate some of the chocolate Ben took, she looked mildly sheepish, but unrepentant. I looked over at Kate, who freely admitted that she'd taken a cut of the loot.
Now my hope is that Ben's fearless and independent spirit and mechanical inclination might drive him to a wildly successful career, and he'll take after his great-great grandfather as an engineer who wasn't afraid to work hard, travel and go where very few men have gone before...and that he'll give up the pillage and plunder side of things.
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