Bumps in the road

Ugh. Bumps in the road are inevitable. I know this, and yet, when long periods of time go relatively sans bumps, I get complacent. I get to thinking and hoping that yup, we've dealt with that. I stop thinking and asking myself what will my strategy be for when I have to deal iwth it again.

What a dumb cluck! Rob has always had issues of honesty as in he is the world's craziest liar. He has always had issues of taking things of others and hiding them and taking his own things at times he shouldn't. (i.e. taking electronics to bed) I also should have remembered that for some reason, his birthday tends to be a trigger time for these things. I don't actually know why; I don't think he knows why. There is nothing written in his big ole file that would ever shed any light on this, but I can honestly say that when he was in public school there were always behavioral issues in the 2 wks leading up to his birthday and for a week or two afterwards as well.

But somehow being as there are 52 wks in a year, and I am the consummate pollyanna who always believes things will get better, I didn't see this coming. Rob hadn't taken anything in awhile. He had been relatively honest, with only "omissions" of the typical variety one would expect of kids.

My first clue should have been the week before his birthday. He became very sluggish during the day. He is always quiet but this was way more so. I thought maybe his spring allergies were starting to kick in. But instead I found his Nintendo DS under his pillow which meant he was staying awake at night playing video games. The boy just can not function without sleep and video games truly seem to do scary things to his brain so we limit their usage. We handled that. For his birthday he got a digital camera so he can bring it to camp this summer. He spent the evening happily snapping pics and exploring functions. Then he put it down of his own volition about 7 or so and started reading. And sometime between then and bedtime, snuck it up to hide under his pillow. I found it right off, thankfully as if it fell off hte bed in the night it would likely have been damaged. (we have wood floors) I expressed my disappointment in his choice. Told him if he was worried something would happen to it that we could find a place to put it where he would be sure it was safe. He wasn't worried about it, didn't feel concern of someone else touching it. OK then.

Last night I find in his shorts pockets a bunch of small items that belong to others, including a pocket knife that Kirsty keeps in the glove box of her car for emergencies. Rob's job is to clean the van every Saturday so obviously that is how he came by it. I was way less calm about finding that. Not that i particularly worry about a 13 year old and a pocket knife. I was a girl scout and had one. But a) he could mess with it around the little kids which would be bad and b) if he was found with it in certain public venues it would be automatically that weapon/threat issue. And it is someone else's pocket knife. Taking others belongings is huge to me.

So now I have my thinking cap on as to how best to handle this. My guess is he is going to spend a lot of time helping me out this weekend.