Well, last night went downhill pretty damn fast.

It started out wonderfully, of course. I love our date nights – It’s always nice when Mark and I can get a little time to ourselves. Of course, I made the mistake of letting him pick the movie this time… But the good company more than made up for it.

It was when we got home that wasn’t so nice.

The lights were on when we pulled in, and that was a red flag right away. Zayne and the girls like staying up pretty late, so I’d expect a few lights in their windows.

But not the whole house.

We got the whole story as soon as we walked through the door. Apparently poor maman and Papa woke up to the sound of a loud crash, and someone throwing up in the bathroom, so they went to investigate.

The crash was Zayne. He tripped while he was trying to help Tony to the bathroom, and knocked over a vase in the hall. An expensive one too. It had belonged to bis-vovó. Poor Oma was so upset when she found out.

And the throwing up was Tony. I guess she didn’t even make it to the toilet in time. Papa told me the poor thing was just lying there on the floor when they found her. He says Alex was in there too, trying to help clean up, and Charlie was out in the hall with Zayne, panicking about the vase.

I guess looking back on it, it almost sounds funny, doesn’t it? But I definitely wasn’t laughing last night.

They’d already put Tony to bed, and were right in the middle of giving the other three a good lecture by the time Mark and I walked in. The kids were all drunk off their asses, of course. One look at them was enough to figure that out.

Zayne wouldn’t tell us where he got the vodka from, but I have a pretty good guess. I remember Remi and River going up to his room with him at his birthday party the other day. They’d said they wanted to give him his present ‘in private.’ I guess I didn’t think much of it at the time… But that had to be it.

I just can’t believe my own children would be so irresponsible! I mean, a glass of wine or beer at dinner is one thing. Heck, even one shot of vodka isn’t so awful, I guess… But drinking so much that they’re tripping over themselves? Getting sick?! Didn’t I teach them better than that? Haven’t they ever heard of alcohol poisoning? It could have been so much worse. And thank God it wasn’t.

Mark had to talk me down from punishing them this morning. They all woke up with pounding headaches, of course. Poor Tony even threw up again. And all four of them were almost too embarrassed to even face us all day. I have to admit, it was pretty darn pathetic seeing them so sick and miserable. I didn’t really have the heart to yell at them any more… And Mark thinks it was the right choice.

He says the lecture from last night and how they felt this morning are enough of a lesson. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta let them make mistakes,” he keeps saying. “They’re smart kids. They’ll learn from them.”

And maybe he’s right. I mean, there was no harm done, right? Not really, anyway. Not this time.

I don’t know. It just feels like they’re all trying to grow up so fast. Too fast. Especially Zayne. I hear him complaining to the girls about how we treat him too much like a kid. And I get that he wants to be independent. I get that he wants to be grown-up.

But he just turned sixteen. He still is a kid, no matter how much he doesn’t want to be.

Can’t he see that?

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I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve updated the Rosebrook Family Tree for Generation Five (both the one I made as well as the full PlumTree version, which is linked on that page too!). Feel free to check it out! 🙂