I wish things were always as black and white as people make them out to be, because they should be. Then thing about that is that people are inherently flawed and are not always able to see things clearly. I know I am ever so guilty of that sometimes to the point of being blinded to what may be directly in front of me. I want to believe the best of everyone, I want to find out what's really going on, but sometimes it's not that easy.
Take, for instance, yesterday morning. I think it was yesterday, anyway. I got up and went to Nyssa's room to get her ready for school. She was not in her bed. Rather, she was laying on the floor in her room with her sister. This is the same sister whom I had put in her own crib mere hours before. The crib rail was up, and she's not big enough to crawl out of it, so there was only one answer with a couple possibilities. Someone else had taken Gabriela out of her crib. Who was it?
I turned into Nancy Drew and questioned the prime suspect: my oldest child. Nyssa's immediate reaction was to play the blame game card. She said that one of the boys took the baby out of the crib. Realizing that under normal circumstances this was a possibility of events, I considered it. I have seen Benjamin trying to do that very action before. However, when Gabriela was last seen in her crib, Benjamin was already asleep, so that was not the truth. So was Nathaniel, for that matter. Upon having all the facts in that situation, I was able to determine that Nyssa was lying to me and that she had taken it upon herself to get Gabriela down. Confronted with the facts, Nyssa admitted what she had done. Case closed.
Not all cases are that air tight, however. Sometimes you look at a situation, things don't add up, and you don't have all the facts to determine the truth and it takes a while before all the evidence surfaces, if, in fact, it ever does. The next conundrum occurred a mere few minutes later.
When I walked into the boys' room to wake Nathaniel, I smelled the problem immediately. Then I saw it. If you have read much of what I have written before, you can probably guess what I found next, as it seems to be a recurring theme. Poop was spread out on the carpet. A not so clean pull up was next to it.
Donning my cap once again, I looked to see if I could instantly find the culprit. Who had taken off their pull-up? Sigh. Evidence here was covered up as whoever had taken it off had also put on another. I decided I'd have to wait a little while to figure out the truth as I had to get Nathaniel and Nyssa ready for school.
When he was awake enough to be able to answer some easy questions, Nathaniel told me that Benjamin had put the poop on the floor. I knew what I had to do. As gross as it sounds, I smelled Nathaniel's hands. I should have known better, because he always touches poop regardless if he's on the potty chair or in his room, so all that did was prove he had touched the poop at some point. His sensory integration issues made certain of that. With more immediate concerns at hand, I got him cleaned up and ready for school and got N&N on their respective buses.
Part two of the investigation happened when Benjamin awoke. I asked him about the poop and he said it was Nathaniel's. Hmm... Two boys were telling apparently two different stories. I wasn't in their room when it happened, and they often wake each other up in the middle of the night, so I couldn't instantly determine the truth. So, I did what I had to do. I smelled Benjamin's hands. Inhale.... Cough. Yuck! I couldn't see it, but I could definitely smell the offensive odor.
So now what? Both boys had something to do with it. But what really happened? It took me all morning to discover the truth, for one fact had been left out. To whom did it belong? The case began to make sense as this discovery came to light. Nathaniel had taken off the pull-up and Benjamin had spread the poop. Sigh. Alas! They were both guilty of doing something. Nathaniel was supposed to take it off and put it in his trashcan, which he didn't do. That neglect allowed his brother to step in and be creative, for lack of a better term. That particular use of medium, however, is strictly prohibited in our household, thank you very much, as they have both been told on numerous occasions.
In a sense, they were partners in crime. Nathaniel left it there to be handled, and Benjamin did the deed. While Nathaniel was not guilty of the actual act, he was guilty of leaving it in a place where it could be abused. But who really needed punishment, Nathaniel? Benjamin? Both? That is hard to answer because you can't blame one for someone else's actions...or can you? That is my conundrum.
In the end, we are all responsible for our own actions. We are responsible for doing what is right, such as putting that pull up in the trashcan. And we have the choice with what we do when someone else leaves a situation in front of our eyes. Do we just leave it alone, just put it in the trash where it belongs, or just get in the middle of the mess and make it bigger?
We never know how our actions may affect someone else. Something we do can actually cause someone to be tempted to do something wrong. While we are each responsible for what we do, I think we should also take responsibility for our actions to do our best not to cause someone else to stumble. Because when that happens, it stinks! We both lose, and sometimes others not even remotely involved in the situation get pulled in and are forced to take some action, like I had to take a carpet shampooer to the boys' carpet.
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