Runaway

Zak left home for the first time yesterday.  It was about an ice cream.  An ice cream that he wasn't bought in the park as he had already had some popcorn and sweets at the cinema. The lack of ice cream led to some behaviour that resulted in his IPad evening slot being removed from him.  This resulted in him leaving home.

I was warned.  All the way back from the park he was telling me that he was leaving home. I told him that he most definitely wasn't, whilst keeping cool, calm and collected.  I was smugly planning on just quietly double locking the door when we got inside.  I was double bluffed however as I stopped the car on the drive and Zak leapt out and legged it down the road! Still wanting to play it cool, I kept unpacking the car and Sebi monitored events from the end of the drive.  Sebi seemed a little disappointed at his progress as I think he expected something more dramatic than his big brother loitering a few houses down. When you're gone you're gone however in Seb's eyes, and as I was moving Zak's scooter from the garage to the house, Sebi enquired as to why I was bothering because Zak wouldn't need it any longer if he wasn't here.  I'm surprised he hadn't moved his stuff into Zak's room and claimed squatter's rights within minutes.  On his next recky from the end of the drive, little brother was slightly more impressed with big brother's progress and fed back that he was now out of sight.  Oh.  Oops.  I'd wrongly assumed that he would loiter down the road and head back when I wasn't looking.  Triple bluffed.

Unfortunately at this precise moment my husband decided to return home.  I thought he made the enquiry in a much more reasonable manner than I would have done had the tables been reversed, about why he had just seen his nine-year old son on his own heading away from home along Ardens Way.

I must pause here and take a minute to explain the hierarchy in our house.  Seb's in charge and the rest of us do as he says.  No, only joking, (sort of).  I am the strict, disciplinarian parent; the boys are the kids and Stuart falls somewhere in between.  I'm not doing him a disservice by saying this - he would be in complete agreement.  He spends hours being silly with the boys: wrestling, football, computer games, making up comedy rhymes about fat people etc, etc; none of which I have any interest in at all.  The boys have the most amazing fun with him but unfortunately that has led to a slightly grey area when it comes to him being able to discipline them.  Quite often he will come to me if something really needs sorting out.  Stu = fun Dad.  Nikki = fun-spoiler Mum.

I think therefore, when Stu found me on the drive with one son having lost the other one and I didn't seem in that particular moment to be doing that much about it, he relished his rapid promotion through the sensible parenting ranks...

Stu and Sebi went inside and I began backing the car out of the drive, tail between my legs, with no particular Plan B about how I was going to actually get Zak to get into the car when I found him.  Halfway out of the drive I noticed a blue cap peeking out from behind a tree.  Slowly I returned the car to the drive, went into the house and waited for the return of the fugitive.

At this point I am pleased to say that the super-early pre-teen behaviour seemed to bury itself again for another day and the rest of the afternoon was passed in a relatively amicable truce.  We're off to the park again in a bit; I reckon I might just buy some ice creams today...