Crime and Punishment

Having twin boys can sometimes be a challenge.

I often hear "what one doesn't think of, the other will", and mostly, that's true.

When they were babies, I'd discover them next to their over-turned crib.

When they were toddlers, I'd find them scaling dressers and dumping drawers.

When they were little boys, I'd learn of secret places all over their bedroom with marker drawings and gum remainders.

They love to wander around the ranch outside, and sometimes they'd return home smelling of gasoline or stained with oil and I'd question them as to what they were doing..."nothing" was always the reply!

Well, they are now 6, and they've already done their first crime.

Behind that gate where we parked the old trailer house is some old cars and trucks of Grandpa's. And the boys had started hanging around that area the end of April/first of May. I never thought about it much, because like I said, they like to wander and I knew where they were at, so I didn't think it was a problem. One evening, Josh went over there and he discovered this:

He knew exactly who had bashed in both of the windshields because the evidence was left at the scene of the crime: two mini shovels that the twins had received for Christmas a few years ago.

Of course, they denied it at first. They tried to place the blame on their brothers. Like the other day, I said "who left this pudding right by the computer?" (they're not supposed to eat by the computer). Ammon said "Jonah did it". Jonah said, "It wasn't me, it was Micah". Micah said "No I didn't, it was Kanyon". And Kanyon said "Nuh-Uh". That's how the blame game goes in this house. But there was no investigation this time; we KNEW who had done the crime of breaking the windshields.

Because they were Grandpa's trucks, we told them of the seriousness of what they had done, informing them that they would have to pay for new windshields. Finally, Jonah said "But Grandpa doesn't drive THOSE trucks". And that's how come it was OKAY for them to hit out the windshields of those two. (There were other trucks parked by the ones with the windshields broken out, but they were un-touched).

When we talked to Grandpa about it, he had already seen the damage and knew what had happened. He didn't talk to us about it, because he said he thought we were already stressed out enough with the whole moving-the-house thing. Grandpa said he didn't need to have the windshields replaced. He said he remembers doing stupid things like that when he was a kid--breaking cars' windows. Then I learned that my husband did that when he was a kid--shot at old car windows. Grandpa said, "that's just what boys do". But, I think it just runs in the family...

Grandpa's punishment for the boys was to help move wood piles. For hours and hours, days and days, we moved wood piles. It's a pointless task, really, moving wood from location to another. We've been doing it all spring--the wood here goes there, the wood that was over there goes here, the wood that was in this pile goes in that pile, etc etc etc. This time a huge chunk of all our wood (we have a wood stove to heat our house in the winter) needed to be moved in order to make room for the house-moving truck to park the new house in its location. It was a good task for the boys, because it requires labor and time. They did the Crime, so they did the Time!!! They started helping with our wood piles and then they helped Grandpa move his piles of wood. I didn't get a photo of the twins working on it, but this is what moving wood piles looks like:

I hope the twins learned a valuable lesson.

I know I did: never put wood in one location if you think there's a possibility it will need to be moved to another!!!