too much of a good thing

One day last week when I was elbow deep in some family crafting time with my mother and sister in laws, Hailey came home and asked to have a friend over. A girl named Emma who had never been here before. I graciously said yes and her mom brought her over and we met briefly and made arrangements for her to be picked up at 5:30. Jonas played with the girls and it seemed like they all were having a great time. At about 5:10, the kids asked if they could go outside and again, I graciously answered yes. Whenever someone in this house mentions the word "outside", Caleb's ears perk up and he comes running. He decided to join the fun.
5:30 came, and I was still elbow deep in a craft, when the doorbell rang. I asked Brian if he would quickly call the kids in while I went to answer the door. The mom and I chatted for a little bit and Brian wasn't coming with the kids. I figured he must not have heard me ask him to grab them, so I told the mom to just hang on I would call the kids in from the back yard.

Only they weren't there.

Brian had been calling. They weren't answering. I called. No answer. My in laws joined in the calling; no answers.
It is at this moment I realized I had to go back in the house and tell that mom that I kind of misplaced her kid temporarily.
That was rather embarrassing.
Everyone then spread out searching for the kids, while I awkwardly tried to carry on a casual conversation with the mom who was playing it cool too, but I am sure was thinking how much she would like to give social services my name and number. After 30 minutes of calling and searching, Brian jumped on the four wheeler and head to the gully about half a mile behind our house.

And that is where we found them all, giant walking sticks in hand, going on a leisurely stroll through the fox invested gully.

Brian, in his meanest dad voice, told them to move it back to the house asap and rode back to tell us he found them. I looked at the mom and said, "Gosh, I am sorry I lost your kid.. he he. I am sure you will crossing Hailey off Emma's friend list."
She was very nice and assured me it was OK. and that Emma would call Hailey soon and maybe next time they could play at THEIR house.
Hailey has yet to be invited.
After they left, I lay into my lecture very politely asking the kids what was going through their brains. The thought didn't occur to any of them to ask permission. Hailey said half way through their journey she asked Jonas if mom knew they were doing this, and Jonas replied nonchalantly that I did not. She said she knew then she was in trouble but couldn't turn back on her own. So no one had an answer for me. Why would they do something so bold, so dangerous, so clearly against the rules?
I can only come up with this.



courage.
I am thinking maybe they caught the courage theme wave and rode it a bit too far.
I told them dad and I would have to talk about punishments and get back to them.
Brian and I decided to ground them from friends for the month and have each of them do an extra job for me every day for a week (like clean out the car, scrub the shower..). When Jonas heard this, he begged and pleaded to change the job part of the punishment to no xbox. (This works for him, because he plays xbox about three times a year.) I said that no, this punishment was going to stay. To which he dramatically stated this was THE WORST PUNISHMENT HE HAD EVER RECEIVED IN HIS LIFE.

Brian looked at me and said, "We are so not doing our job as parents."

We see now, that our theme, courage, needs to be had by us as as parents as we increase the severity of our children's punishments. Because there is just no way Jonas can have an angst ridden teenage existence if the worst punishment he ever received was an extra chore.