Mommy Jail

How was Spring Break you ask?
Wednesday morning at 7:00 am I can hear the boys talking in their room.  Since it was spring break there was no reason for me to jump up and get the day rolling, and because they were talking quietly I just laid there for a moment.  OK, I fell back to sleep, DON'T JUDGE.  Anyway, at 7:30 I hear screaming and the five-year-old comes tearing into my room holding his face screaming at the top of his lungs "he punched me".

Needless to say, I did not jump up because I was not fully awake yet and beside all I could think is, Seriously?!

They both ended up downstairs 4 minutes later watching TV together.  How do I know - I timed them.  So I laid there trying to decide what to do.  OK, I fell back asleep again, STOP JUDGING! But I came up with this fabulous idea.  Lock down.  Yep, that's right.  I decided that if they want to act like hooligans they can live like a hooligan and where do hooligans live?? Jail.

So I calmly went downstairs, got a bowl of cereal, started two separate lists and told them both the plan for the day.  They needed to complete all of the chores on their list and then they would need to go to their room until they were called for lunch.  They knew they were in trouble so there wasn't much argument for the first 1/2 hour.  Unfortunately, the chores took two hours so at 10:30 they were marched upstairs and I shut the door.  That went well again for about 1/2 hour then the five-year-old began opening the door every 5 minutes to ask if it was lunch time yet.

At lunch time, when dad came home for lunch and asked how things were going they both started telling the story, then arguing about the story, then screaming and fighting all over again.  I asked them to finish lunch, put the dished away, and marched them back upstairs.  All while my husband buried his head in his arm pretending to cough, but actually laughing his butt off.  Which made it very difficult to keep a straight face when I told them they were not to come out until I opened the door.

My husband and I went over calendar's, questions, work issues, etc...it was really quite nice, then we both promptly fell asleep. OK, JUDGE! I don't care anymore.  Two hours after I had marched them upstairs and my husband and I had gotten in a power nap, he went up to talk to the prisoners.  He told the boys he backs me up 100% and they needed to shape up.  Then he gave them a list of exercises told them to change clothes and get water bottles because they were going to the gym.

As I was loading them up in the car the five-year-old year old started to get snippy with me and I asked if he would like two days in a row.  He looked at me and said, "This is not real jail! This is mommy jail and I don't like it."  Darn, thought I had a good thing going here.  Is it too soon to think I nipped this thing in the bud??