Being Grounded

Before you freak out, my child is pictured here in a play yard.  Get that?  Play yard. Meaning, he is playing and that thing, in a size comparison to his little body is an entire yard.  So I’d say it’s a sweet deal for him.  I’d even throw in a “you’re welcome, Chip.”

But can we talk about being grounded for a minute?  I distinctly remember being grounded when I was little for talking back to my mom.  My punishment was to sit in my room and not be able to watch Duck Tales.  I was so mad at myself for getting grounded that while I was wallowing in self-pity, I took my favorite eraser and I ripped it up.  At age 5.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

And dissection of the psychological issues from that story that I clearly have with being an extreme Type-A and a perfectionist, let’s begin by clearly understanding that I had no idea how good I had it.

Grounded.  Sent to my room, ALONE for an extended period of time.  WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET BACK HERE?

This week, I have talked back with tons of sass, spilled milk all over the floor, swore at the spilled milk, raised my voice, ate dessert before dinner (multiple times), was snarky for no reason, made a mess and didn’t clean it up, was rude, was self-seeking, cried and threw a tantrum, and, to top it all off, got a cell phone while driving ticket.

AND NONE OF THIS WARRANTED BEING GROUNDED.

Do you even know the fun I would have being grounded?  I would read.  I would tweet. I would Instagram.  I would sneak cookies in there and then shove them all in my face while laughing about it.  I would scream behind closed doors to make it seem like I was in true, true misery.  I would nap.  I would dream.  I would write.  I would look out the window and pretend, for once in my life, to be bored.

And then I would pin point what got me in that delightful  miserable situation and I would do it over and over again.