the sneak

Devin is becoming a big kid. He can read. He understands rules and consequences; he can be very helpful with his siblings. Because of this he has more freedom, like letting him go to the neighbor's house alone with a walkie-talkie, but he also has more responsibility, like letting him pour his own milk or letting him bathe himself. We recently started letting the boys earn a weekly allowance (based on chores and good behavior). Devin is really excited about this and he's proud of himself that he can do these new things. He feels like he's growing up. I shouldn't be surprised that some of his negative behaviors are getting a bit more sophisticated as well.

Devin has always been a little sneaky. He's the kid that rarely will do anything overtly wrong, but if he thinks there's a chance that he won't get caught, he's just as evil as the rest. Today the boys were jumping off their beds. I told them to stop and a few minutes later I hear Devin telling Alex to yell "LALALALALA" really loud. So Alex starts yelling and I hear the loud 'thunk' which clearly is Devin jumping off the bed. So I call him downstairs to talk to me and I ask him if he really thought that having Alex yell would cover the sound of him jumping. I couldn't hide the snicker in my voice, because part of me admired his creativity, and Dev knew he wasn't really in trouble. However, I thought I made myself clear that he needed to get in line.
So later when he went to yellow and eventually to red (we use a traffic light analogy for poor behavior) Devin cried and went to his room. When I invited him to join the free world again he wasn't carrying on about losing his allowance (a consequence of going to red) as much as he did last time this happened, but I didn't think much of it. Until bedtime when I noticed that Devin's ziploc bag full of money (I know, we need to get the kids wallets, but try finding little boy wallets that can hold change... which is completely necessary since most of their money is not paper). Devin's bag had more change than I remembered. I checked Alex's bag and it looked pretty sparse, but I wasn't sure if any money was missing. So I called Devin over, held up his bag and asked him if there was anything that he wanted to tell me. He got the "oh shit" look in his eyes and then he told me that he figured out how to get money out of his piggy bank through the hole in the bottom.
What??!?! I was absolutely floored! Here I thought I was confronting a little thief and I was ready to wield Mom's fury of discipline, and the kid really was only taking what was already his. No wonder he wasn't too broken up about losing his allowance. Again, I kind of admired Devin's ingenuity. He proudly showed me how he got the stopper out of the bottom of the bank and he told me that he only took two quarters, three dimes and a penny. Then Devin promised me that he won't do it again, but I can tell he's not sold on the whole concept of saving his money. And I am realizing that I need to step up my parenting skills a bit.