5 year old Dynamo
So my five year old son (the number two son) came up with this plan. He decided he was going to build a cardboard fort in the backyard and live in it, or more importantly sleep in it. I was skeptical, though I tried very hard to keep all skepticism out of my comments. My wife was more confident, enough so that she spent a large chunk of yesterday helping him put together the fort, which was backed by the big cinderblock wall we have as the back fence.
Well bedtime (8:00) rolled around and he tropped out to his fort, where he already had a sleeping back and pillow. I gave him 20 minutes before he was too cold, lonely, scared or bored. At 8:30 I walked out to check on him and made sure he knew that the door was open if he needed to come in. He merely told me that he wanted another blanket. When I checked on him at 9:00 he was asleep. Well that really threw me, because in all my planning I had never considered the fact that he would actually do it (which I realize does not speak well of me).
Obviously I wanted to leave him out there. Although he picked a bad night, it was suppossed to be windy and rainy as a cold front moved in. Now obviously there was a greater chance of him freezing to death, than of him being kidnapped out of the back yard, but that doesn't mean that that's not precisely the thought that haunted me last night (both the kidnapping and the freezing, despite the low chance of either).
We did leave the window open so we could hear anything happening in the backyard, so when it did start raining at 4:30 we went and got him (or rather the wife did). If the fort had not been made of cardboard and set in the lowest part of the yard I might have waited to see if he could tough it out. And as you might imagine he did seem annoyed this morning that we had pulled him out. He seemed none the worse for wear, though the same could not be said for me, I didn't really sleep very well at all.
Yet another prediction I got wrong
Well bedtime (8:00) rolled around and he tropped out to his fort, where he already had a sleeping back and pillow. I gave him 20 minutes before he was too cold, lonely, scared or bored. At 8:30 I walked out to check on him and made sure he knew that the door was open if he needed to come in. He merely told me that he wanted another blanket. When I checked on him at 9:00 he was asleep. Well that really threw me, because in all my planning I had never considered the fact that he would actually do it (which I realize does not speak well of me).
Obviously I wanted to leave him out there. Although he picked a bad night, it was suppossed to be windy and rainy as a cold front moved in. Now obviously there was a greater chance of him freezing to death, than of him being kidnapped out of the back yard, but that doesn't mean that that's not precisely the thought that haunted me last night (both the kidnapping and the freezing, despite the low chance of either).
We did leave the window open so we could hear anything happening in the backyard, so when it did start raining at 4:30 we went and got him (or rather the wife did). If the fort had not been made of cardboard and set in the lowest part of the yard I might have waited to see if he could tough it out. And as you might imagine he did seem annoyed this morning that we had pulled him out. He seemed none the worse for wear, though the same could not be said for me, I didn't really sleep very well at all.
Yet another prediction I got wrong
posted by DireKobold at 10:55 AM
3 Comments:
Tough little kid. I still get scared sleeping outside alone.
Isn't that what we want, though, to have our kids surpass us?
I agree with medsker and ed.
What I think speaks well of you was the trust you placed in your son. You allowed the challenge for your boy and at the same you tended to your child. Well done.
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