On Anger, Part 2

I had just gotten off the phone with a friend from Chicago, gotten the kids breakfast, and dashed into the other room to read the headlines of the NYTimes. As I scanned the article on the "Miracle on the Hudson," I heard this very familiar "drop-drop-drop" from the kitchen. I looked in to see a sea of Cheerios (oops, is that brand-name reference number two in three sentences? Ouch, I didn't know I did that) and raisins on the floor. Three-and-a-half year olds don't need to test gravity; they passed that developmental milestone (with great creativity and determination) way back.

But I didn't lose my cool. Actually, I'm not even sure I was angry, so much as annoyed and a little amused that they could make such a mess in so short a time, perhaps even a little guilty that I had been reading the paper in those moments instead of watching them eat. But I had to muster some mommy outrage and calmly discipline them for making a mess and wasting food, all the while I was thinking of the Motherlode post on anger yesterday. So, there was no yelling just an immediate end to breakfast, the insistence that they help clean it up, and then banishment to the living room where they could await our "time in" while I finished up. By then, they were both crying, mainly because they still wanted to play and eat. It was very much the Gone with the Wind/Scarlett O'Hara "the thief who was sorry he got caught but not at all sorry he stole" routine. But we discussed the whole incident, got dressed for our playgroup, and got out the door. No apologies necessary. What a relief!

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Oh, and in the off-chance she comes back, a "hello and thanks" to Lisa Belkin, author of Motherlode, for her visit and comment on my blog yesterday. I'm very glad my kiddos are too young to read this "live" or as it happens, though I keep them, and the future, in mind when I write (as this is in part my virtual scrapbook for them). But I have already embarrassed my mom (who lives faraway and is, with other distant family and friends, my main audience) any number of times! I guess children always have that ability, even grown ones.