Her mother thinks Madison is acting out because she wants the same level of attention from her that I give Madison when she is with me. My mother thinks that Madison's mom is ignoring her and locking her in her room with water and soggy crackers. Coworkers feel that she is acting the same as every other divorced kid who feels like she is entitled. Finally, someone said she is four. Who leaves a four year old alone with a marker in a room full of white surfaces?
I am the kid who destroyed his own room twice before the age of five and lived to tell the tale."
Juvenile destruction continued into the preteen era. At this point I recruited my gang of mischief makers. The watermelon seed spitting contest in Grandma's kitchen. The rotten apple fight in our basement during my parents card party. Numerous squash and zucchini sword fights and the best ever bicycle demolition derby in the county. I had some kind of fun growing up and it all started with a small destructive streak while still in diapers.
Looking back I realize that this wasn't destruction for vandalism sake but rather an exploration. A science experiment to see how far that seed can be spit. What made a stout, strong zucchini? I honed dodging skills because a rotten apple still hurts when you get hit whether it mushes on impact or flies apart like a grenade. This was creativity in action. The merrymakers who joined me? All of us have college educations, all of us are highly successful and all of us have used our creativity to promote our success.
I won't tell Madison's mom that she is being creative and to leave her alone. I rolled over last night and saw the text message that Madison had now colored the bathroom a pretty purple. I went to sleep thinking about how ugly that bathroom was anyway and that my creative daughter had probably just improved on it.
The final word is this. Let kids be creative. Let adults be creative. The fellow troublemaker who spit watermelon seeds the farthest? Yeah, he has a fancy title with a C at the beginning of it and a color scheme of black and red. Highly successful for someone who beat me out by inches in distance seed spitting. If only I could have gotten that last seed in before our Uncle came in hollering and I swallowed it instead of spiiting for the win.