Today I had an epiphany. Crosley had just done a not very nice thing and I exploded. Like really put her in her place. Not a shiny moment of mine. And while I was granted a few minutes of fearful silence in the car (even Brox was scared to utter a sound), Blythe eventually broke the ice with what she almost certainly thought was a righteous thing to say:
“Oh Mom, my book has a bad word in it! It says ‘what the h-e-c-k’ and we can’t say that word.”
And in either a moment of weakness or a moment of clarity—you decide—I blurted:
“Actually, you can say that word.”
Well it’s true.
“There’s nothing stopping you.”
Only repercussions.
“But I hope you don’t. Because it’s not a nice word.”
Let’s ignore that I catch myself saying it from time to time.
“We can say and do all kinds of naughty things. But I hope you don’t, because it’s nicer to do and say good things…”
And then I was granted more silence. Maybe they were pondering their new freedom to do bad things. And maybe they were weighing the outcomes…Or maybe they were staring out the window at the Blue Angels making streaks in the sky.
I don’t know.
But I sure wish I hadn’t exploded my temper on Crosley earlier. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do or say.
It happens to all of us, or most of us, or at least that's what I tell myself because it happened to me, too. I completely lost it on my kids once and even started crying. My kids' response was to be quiet for a few minutes and then start laughing. Not in an evil way, but more like a way to break the tension. For years, they would randombly say, "Remember that time we made you cry?" It became a funny story, and they never pushed me to tears again... or at least not because I lost my cool.