Stolen Rocks

I usually don't write about my frustrations with the twins on my blog because 1) if their birth family were to accidentally stumble on to this blog, I want to keep up the illusion that I have on the twins' blog that we are perfect parents raising perfect kids in a perfect family, and 2) this is my journal, and I'd much rather record & remember the happy things, rather than the sad/frustrating/depressing/annoying/aggravating things.

When Jamey & the twins were babies, James has memories of it being so stressful and horrible and, to hear him talk about it, pure torture. I have such happy memories from that time -- of the 3 babies dressed in matching outfits, pushing them in our limousine stroller all around Laramie, etc. It is only when I read my journal (or their journals) that I remember that it was rather stressful. I don't deny that it was a lot of work - I remember that we'd have to schedule in an extra half hour every time we went someplace, to allow time to buckle all the kids in and out of their car seats and load them in to their stroller or whatever tactic we would use that day to keep them all in one general area. I remember going outside of our tiny 2 bedroom apartment and all 3 babies would run in opposite directions, each heading to a different busy street. And I remember having 5 kids 3 years and under, all in diapers at the same time. I see pictures of myself from back then and realize that I rarely had time to do my hair - it was usually pulled back in to a barrette, bangs and all. But that was the life I chose, and I never thought to question it. I loved it. I look back on the stress and I smile. I loved having "triplets." I loved the freedom I felt once we moved from our fishbowl in Moab to the blessing of anonymity in Laramie. What a relief that was! What happy days we had in Laramie! Of course, I was not the one in law school, so naturally James would remember those 3 years as being full of stress. My memory is kind to me (I'm already getting alzheimers, you know), and usually I remember the happy times until I am reminded of the sad ones.

One of those sad memories popped up within this past week. About five years ago, on James' birthday, we went to the Dollar Store to buy balloons to take to James' office at the courthouse. After we left, I discovered that Ian had stolen some candy. I turned around and headed back to the Dollar Store so he could pay for the candy (he'd already eaten half of it) and tell them what he had done. He refused to get out of the car, so I picked him up (he was smaller back then) and buckled him in to the stroller so he didn't have a choice. He's always been a pretty strong boy, so this was not an easy task and he really fought me on it. He did NOT want to tell the store clerk what he had done. I marched him (and all the other kids) in to the store and told him to tell the clerk about the candy. He wouldn't do it. I finally told them, and they were SO nice about it. They basically told him that they didn't care, that it happened all the time, that he didn't need to pay for the candy, etc. I was VERY upset with the clerk and realized I had handled it in completely the wrong way. I should have told the clerk beforehand how I wanted her to handle the situation. She gave Ian no consequence whatsoever for the incident - in fact, giving him POSITIVE attention for what he had done.

Next I marched everybody to the courthouse, where we delivered the balloons, and where I asked Judge Young, who was James' boss at the time, to please put Ian in jail (I was not kidding -- they have old jail cells in the basement of the courthouse) for what he had done. Judge Young thought I was kidding. He didn't put Ian in jail. I don't remember what our consequence for Ian was at home, but I am sure we didn't let him get away with it. The incident made me VERY worried about him, because he didn't seem at all sorry that he'd stolen the candy, he was just sorry that he'd gotten caught. Of course, he was only 5 years old at the time. We asked Bishop Fagnant to meet with him, which he did, and discuss honesty and etc. I think that probably helped. I wanted to nip the behavior in the bud, because I already had visions of Ian robbing banks as a teenager.

Over the years since then, Ian has definitely had "sticky fingers" at home, and occasionally at school, but as far as I know he has never stolen anything else from a store. After the incidents at school, I asked Bishop Irene to meet with him, but he was not too concerned because he said that when he was a little boy, his mom would have to shake out his pockets every time they left a store, and he grew up and turned out to be a good, honest person. But Ian isn't a little boy anymore. He is old enough to know better. And the biggest problem I have is that I have never been able to tell when he is lying. With my other kids, I can see the guilty look in their eyes and see that they are lying. Not with Ian (and moreso now with Ethan also). Ian looks at me with his big, blue, innocent eyes and I believe every word he says. That is, until recently. Now I just don't believe anything he ever says, which is sad, but which usually turns out to be wisdom on my part. He sat on my mom's fireplace for an hour or more telling me, with those big innocent eyes, that he had not started the fire in my mom's backyard, and I could not tell he was lying. But I was also not surprised when he finally admitted that he had done it. And when I told his adoption caseworker about the incident, he brushed it off, saying that when he was a little boy he used to start fires too. Yes, little boys do all kinds of stupid things when they are little, but we all pray that they'll grow out of those things as they grow up.

Last Saturday after we returned home from our trip to Bear Lake, all of the kids were helping clean out the van & the boat. Jamey came across two magnetic rocks that he recognized from the Little America store we'd been to the day before when we stopped for ice cream cones. He immediately brought them to me and told me he'd seen the twins playing with them at the store. Ian didn't deny stealing them. I filed the rest of the kids in to the house, leaving Ian to finish cleaning out the van by himself. Then I stewed and stewed, trying to figure out what I was going to do about the situation! Ethan sat with a guilty look of relief on his face, and I realized that he had been sitting by Ian in the van, so he knew about the theft all weekend and hadn't said a word about it. When I confronted him with that, he admitted that he knew Ian had stolen 3 rocks (THREE rocks?). So then Ethan was in big trouble too. Both twins lost all of their privileges for the week, until they could return the rocks to Little America this weekend on our way to Utah. Ethan said, "why can't I just work to pay for the rocks?" This had been our consequence for stealing in the past - they had to pay for the object twice over, either returning the object with full payment for it, or, if the object was food and was already eaten, or ruined, etc., pay for the object twice (this included things stolen from the house). I told the twins that in real life, when you steal something, you don't get to just pay for it and not have a consequence. You have to go to jail. I suppose if I'd been really smart, and not so stingey, I would have made Ian miss all of his sports activities this week as well, but I didn't want to think of all of that money going to waste, so he still went to track, swimming, and baseball, and every other family activity that we had planned for the week. So I'm not sure if he really had a sense of being "in jail" with privileges gone, because he was very busy anyway. Only time will tell if this consequence was effective. The main part of the consequence came on Friday, though.

During a baseball game, Teancum discovered the third rock when he tried to get a chair out of the back of the van. Both twins were sent to the fireplace until it could be cleared out who had stolen the third rock. Neither twin would admit it. We proceeded through the rest of the day and still neither twin would fess up. James and I threatened to call Little America and have them watch their security cameras to see who had stolen it. As the day progressed, Ethan kept saying that if we would just watch the cameras we would know he hadn't stolen it. But when James called Little America, they said they didn't have security cameras by the rocks and that they expected them to be stolen, it happened all the time, it was no big deal, etc. They also promised to cooperate in whatever way we wanted them to. When I told Ian we'd talked to Little America (not telling him there were no security cameras), he didn't flinch. He kept his innocent look. There was no breaking him. I was already convinced at that point that Ethan was innocent, because of his unrelenting begging for us to check the security cameras. Finally James said that Ian admitted he had stolen the third rock. He said Ian cried about it and obviously felt remorse. I have yet to believe that.

On Friday, we stopped at Little America and the rest of us got ice cream cones. James met with the manager before he brought the twins in. He was very cooperative, saying that he had to do that when he was a little boy and had stolen something from a store. James brought the twins in, and I watched from a distance. The twins looked solemn and scared. The manager talked for quite a while. James told me afterwards that he explained to them what happens to the prices of the merchandise when people are stealing things from stores. He told them it was against the law. He said that, just this once, he wouldn't get the police involved. He did everything I wish that Dollar Store clerk had done five years ago, except I wouldn't have minded if he had made them sweep the walks or do something to reimburse the store for the theft. The rocks were returned. The twins went back to the van. The rest of us ate ice cream cones as we continued on our trip to Utah. Was a lesson learned? I don't know. James keeps reminding me that the twins are nothing like the kids he works with in court. He has high hopes for them. I have high fears for them. I pray constantly to know how to parent them. I need a lot more wisdom than I naturally have. This is one of those frustrating times as a parent where I tell Heavenly Father that I have done all that I know how to do, and the rest is in His hands. We know they were meant to be in our Eternal family, that we were meant to be their parents, but we need His help to raise them successfully.