Consequences Are A Bitch.

Oldest One is exceptionally possessive about many things. He’d prefer if you didn’t touch anything that he’s ever liked – even if it doesn’t belong to him.

But the biggest thing for him is his clothing.

For a while, laundry day brought near-brawls as he yelled at his brothers for “touching” his clothes as they rooted through the clean laundry to find their own.

He screamed at them for moving anything. He carried on and on if a sock fell out of the basket as they moved things.

He repeatedly made his brothers cry.

Coffee and I got sick of the tears – every week – from all three kids. Laundry shouldn’t be traumatic for the entire family, right?

So we set rules for Oldest One’s clothes.

The first rule is that he is in charge of ALL laundry folding for the kids. His chore is to fold his laundry AND his brothers’ and place neat piles of clothes on the appropriate bed. This means his brothers are not touching HIS clothes or dropping them on the floor.

The second rule is that, since he is so protective of his clothing, there are to be no clothes left on his bedroom floor when he leaves the house during the week.

He asked for, and we bought him, 50 new hangers to help him hang things in the closet (along with the clothes in the drawers).

We told him that any clothes left on the floor will be confiscated – forever – and either donated to Goodwill or given to a brother when they are big enough to wear it. No exceptions. No option to beg for something back or whine about the unfairness of it. (The exceptions are socks and underpants.)

We also told him that if he lost all of his clothes, he’d need to use his allowance to purchase more. And since his allowance is $11/week, he’d probably need to buy them at Value Village. And no, we’re not kidding.

He seemed to find this concept amusing.

He joked about going to school and telling his teachers that we were “taking away” his clothes. We shrugged and said we were fine with that – he’s got the power to keep that from happening.

And y’know, he’s been fine with the folding of laundry – pleased, even. He does a really good job of it, too.

He’s definitely been not-so-fine with the clothing on the floor.

As of this morning, I have two giant garbage bags full of clothing in the basement that I scooped from his floor. Bags stuffed with jeans and shirts and jamma pants and all manner of clothing.

For weeks he’s been shrugging off the loss of these clothes. I reminded him for the first two weeks that he needed to pick up the clothes or I’d take them – and ten minutes later he’d leave the house and I’d go upstairs and take all the clothes from his floor.

Repeat the next day.

We’re not sure if he figured we were bluffing (and would eventually return the clothes to him) or if he thought he had enough clothes to last him the rest of his life even if he left some on the floor each day.

But after weeks of ignoring the warnings, this morning he came downstairs and, tearfully, told me that he had no clean t-shirts. (Laundry day was Sunday.. it’s only Wednesday..)

I told him to go check his closet and his drawers and, if he really had no clothes to wear, we’d go to Value Village where he could use his allowance to purchase clothes.

He glared at me.

He had, for a few months, a room that was literally stuffed with clothes. We bought him some, of course, and he was given bags of clothing (hand-me-down) from some of my friends. He had so many clothes he didn’t even recognize some of them as being his own.

And now? Now he’s realizing that the stack of clothing was not, in fact, bottomless. He’s realizing we weren’t kidding about the need to keep the clothes in good shape.

He did find something to wear this morning – jeans and a t-shirt – so the immediate “crisis” has apparently been averted. I’m hoping he’s learned his lesson about this. We’re not bluffing or kidding and he really does need to take care of his stuff.

Consequences…

–

On Monday he came home from school and said that his bike tire had burst, unexpectedly, while he was riding. He walked the bike home and asked if we could fix it.

Knowing that bike tires can be popped quite easily by thorns or glass or sharp rocks, we didn’t worry about it. I went out yesterday to pick up a new tube and Coffee planned to put it on last night.

But we discovered that it wasn’t just a popped tube.

Instead, it was a hole worn through the tire and through the tube. Most of the treads are gone from the tire.

Coffee has warned him many times in the past month that skidding repeatedly instead of simply braking would wear through the tire. We warned him he’d have to pay to replace the tire using his allowance.

Y’see, we cover acts of god – not acts of Oldest One after he’s been warned.

So this morning he discovered that no, he wasn’t riding his bike to school today.

And he discovered that he had “no clean clothes” to wear.

Consequences are a bitch.