We were all in a puddle of tears this morning by the time the carpool
van showed up in our driveway at 8:30. How can so much damage be done in such a short amount of time? It is the sixth full day of school and since the last 5 mornings have been rocky, to say the least, I figured I would try a new tactic this morning. Instead of having the kids get up and come out to an empty living room full of potential mischief to be had until Mom is finally dragged from her slumber, I decided to get up BEFORE them, ready to meet their sweet little groggy faces when they came out of their rooms. I wrapped myself in my fluffy robe, grabbed my cup of coffee and sat down to hear all about Tate’s dreams from last night. Zach enters, bed head, tired voice, “Morning Mom”. The beginnings of a wonderful morning.
I sighed. Thankful for my children today. Last night had been Back to School night so they were up later than usual and incredibly cantankerous as I threatened them with spankings into their beds. So as the sun came up, this was a welcomed change. Steam from my coffee cup twirled into the air. Fleece lined slippers whispered to my toes that we were celebrating the first signs of fall. Maybe I will make homemade cinnamon apple oatmeal I thought. The puppy climbed up sleepily into my welcoming lap.
And then, as if on cue, sensing that I might be too contentedly comfortable, the room shifted. The crazy look crossed Tate’s face and he began traumatizing the puppy. It starts with a few shrieks, giggles and other unidentifiable yelp-like sounds and explodes quickly into a raucous symphony of swirling hurricane deafening chaos. Legos are spilled in one sweeping toss onto the ground, objects begin flying through the air, and somehow the living room furniture becomes playground equipment.
I take a deep breath and calmly remind them to “use their indoor voices”, which, to date, has NEVER worked. It sounds like something that should work. It logically makes so much sense to give them a contrast to understand the appropriateness or lack thereof for a given scenario. But it is as if I haven’t even spoken. My voice is drowned out in a cacophony of school boy energy and sound. In fact, I cannot actually hear my own voice as I remind them again to not use the coffee table as a springboard onto the couch. My physical cues come first, shortness of breath, quickening pulse, a heavy un-nameable sensation around my neck, like fingers tightening their grip to begin a slow strangling process. There is a dull ache in the forefront of my cerebrum, as if it is fighting to control my emotional response to this imminent threat I am feeling.
I fight to tap into my yoga breathing, pep talking myself into staying calm, being in the eye of the hurricane and modeling for my children a beacon of tranquility and centeredness. “Namaste”. I repeat it over and over again. What does that mean again? I am searching for the definition, clawing at my memory to bring it up for me, I can’t remember, I can’t hear, no thoughts can enter in save for the myriad of ways I could silence the thunderous commotion swirling around me. Heart pounds. I get a brief disjointed vision of machine gun shells raining down on me. A squeal escapes from one of their mouths that actually assaults my auditory processing. I hear the familiar loud ring in my ear that my husband has informed me is actually a cilium, a tiny microscopic organism in my ear, dying. The realization that the clamor of my children is actually destroying parts of my body now leaves me feeling truly violated. Reflexively, my mouth opens in fight or flight response and I scream the first thing that comes.
“TATE!” (my four-year-old’s name) The vicious cry of a warrior heading out for the fight. The room is suddenly silent. Void of motion, breath, or thought. The fear crosses his face like a time lapse picture of clouds covering a previously sun-lit sky. All eyes are on me, a Lego falls, breaking the deafening silence. Still watching. Awaiting what I have to say. It is clear by their faces they were completely caught off guard, no warning signal that Mom was about to erupt. Like a lightning strike on a clear day. They stare at me stunned. Even my husband peaks his head out of the kitchen as if to see what the trouble may be. Equally as stunned as they are, though not by the eruption, but rather the silence, I stare back at them. Rational thought begins to re-enter. I have control of the room. I have to say something. I must maintain this new ground I have just acquired. Quickly. Before it is taken back. “Go to your room!” I scream, with powerful, if not equal intensity as the previous screech . Shock and confusion crosses over his little face as tears well up and he picks up his little yellow Lego and walks, head down into his room. Tear streaming down his cheek. Door closes. Room still silent.
The look of fear and disappointment crosses my seven year old’s face as his playmate was just dismissed to solitary confinement. Why do I all of a sudden feel like the irrational one? Doubt enters in, as the storm has momentarily subsided, I wonder, did all of that just happen? As if coming out of shock, the blood re-enters and begins to re-circulate. Re-gathering myself I glance around, the room verifies my memory; overturned chair, strewn Legos, misplaced pillows and cowering dog under the table. Yes, all the evidence points to the storm being real. I did what I had to, didn’t I? The situation had gotten out of control, hadn’t it? Then why do I feel so bad? Why am I near tears for yelling at my kid? Wasn’t I the rational one? Hadn’t I responded appropriately? Logic cries a resounding “yes”. Emotion sends me to the bathroom sobbing.
Now that was my husband’s cue to mobilize troops and minimize fall-out. Stop the leak before it floods the house. He, in deft allegiance to the bawling woman in the bathroom briskly executes his paternal strength while displaying the solidarity between us. He storms into my son’s room at worst communicating, “Now look what you have done to your mother”, and at best, completing the disciplinary task I had left unfinished in my sudden onset of acute post traumatic stress disorder. In the kitchen my seven year old is left to the role of “scape-goat”, a term they refer to in psychology, to the one acting out the family dysfunction. Which in layman’s terms means, “This whole scene is so screwed up I don’t what to do. It has to be someone’s fault. I’ll do something bad to take the heat and blow this whole thing up.”
Foregoing painstaking details of the scene that ensued, it will suffice to say that a half hour later, after more reckless disciplinary disaster, a pile of crumpled Kleenexes, with half eaten breakfast, and red swollen eyes the two boys and I ended piled on the couch with my husband, still a bit shell shocked sitting across from us with a look, mirroring mine, that said, “What just happened?”
And then, as if on cue, sensing that I might be too contentedly comfortable, the room shifted. The crazy look crossed Tate’s face and he began traumatizing the puppy. It starts with a few shrieks, giggles and other unidentifiable yelp-like sounds and explodes quickly into a raucous symphony of swirling hurricane deafening chaos. Legos are spilled in one sweeping toss onto the ground, objects begin flying through the air, and somehow the living room furniture becomes playground equipment.
I take a deep breath and calmly remind them to “use their indoor voices”, which, to date, has NEVER worked. It sounds like something that should work. It logically makes so much sense to give them a contrast to understand the appropriateness or lack thereof for a given scenario. But it is as if I haven’t even spoken. My voice is drowned out in a cacophony of school boy energy and sound. In fact, I cannot actually hear my own voice as I remind them again to not use the coffee table as a springboard onto the couch. My physical cues come first, shortness of breath, quickening pulse, a heavy un-nameable sensation around my neck, like fingers tightening their grip to begin a slow strangling process. There is a dull ache in the forefront of my cerebrum, as if it is fighting to control my emotional response to this imminent threat I am feeling.
I fight to tap into my yoga breathing, pep talking myself into staying calm, being in the eye of the hurricane and modeling for my children a beacon of tranquility and centeredness. “Namaste”. I repeat it over and over again. What does that mean again? I am searching for the definition, clawing at my memory to bring it up for me, I can’t remember, I can’t hear, no thoughts can enter in save for the myriad of ways I could silence the thunderous commotion swirling around me. Heart pounds. I get a brief disjointed vision of machine gun shells raining down on me. A squeal escapes from one of their mouths that actually assaults my auditory processing. I hear the familiar loud ring in my ear that my husband has informed me is actually a cilium, a tiny microscopic organism in my ear, dying. The realization that the clamor of my children is actually destroying parts of my body now leaves me feeling truly violated. Reflexively, my mouth opens in fight or flight response and I scream the first thing that comes.
“TATE!” (my four-year-old’s name) The vicious cry of a warrior heading out for the fight. The room is suddenly silent. Void of motion, breath, or thought. The fear crosses his face like a time lapse picture of clouds covering a previously sun-lit sky. All eyes are on me, a Lego falls, breaking the deafening silence. Still watching. Awaiting what I have to say. It is clear by their faces they were completely caught off guard, no warning signal that Mom was about to erupt. Like a lightning strike on a clear day. They stare at me stunned. Even my husband peaks his head out of the kitchen as if to see what the trouble may be. Equally as stunned as they are, though not by the eruption, but rather the silence, I stare back at them. Rational thought begins to re-enter. I have control of the room. I have to say something. I must maintain this new ground I have just acquired. Quickly. Before it is taken back. “Go to your room!” I scream, with powerful, if not equal intensity as the previous screech . Shock and confusion crosses over his little face as tears well up and he picks up his little yellow Lego and walks, head down into his room. Tear streaming down his cheek. Door closes. Room still silent.
The look of fear and disappointment crosses my seven year old’s face as his playmate was just dismissed to solitary confinement. Why do I all of a sudden feel like the irrational one? Doubt enters in, as the storm has momentarily subsided, I wonder, did all of that just happen? As if coming out of shock, the blood re-enters and begins to re-circulate. Re-gathering myself I glance around, the room verifies my memory; overturned chair, strewn Legos, misplaced pillows and cowering dog under the table. Yes, all the evidence points to the storm being real. I did what I had to, didn’t I? The situation had gotten out of control, hadn’t it? Then why do I feel so bad? Why am I near tears for yelling at my kid? Wasn’t I the rational one? Hadn’t I responded appropriately? Logic cries a resounding “yes”. Emotion sends me to the bathroom sobbing.
Now that was my husband’s cue to mobilize troops and minimize fall-out. Stop the leak before it floods the house. He, in deft allegiance to the bawling woman in the bathroom briskly executes his paternal strength while displaying the solidarity between us. He storms into my son’s room at worst communicating, “Now look what you have done to your mother”, and at best, completing the disciplinary task I had left unfinished in my sudden onset of acute post traumatic stress disorder. In the kitchen my seven year old is left to the role of “scape-goat”, a term they refer to in psychology, to the one acting out the family dysfunction. Which in layman’s terms means, “This whole scene is so screwed up I don’t what to do. It has to be someone’s fault. I’ll do something bad to take the heat and blow this whole thing up.”
Foregoing painstaking details of the scene that ensued, it will suffice to say that a half hour later, after more reckless disciplinary disaster, a pile of crumpled Kleenexes, with half eaten breakfast, and red swollen eyes the two boys and I ended piled on the couch with my husband, still a bit shell shocked sitting across from us with a look, mirroring mine, that said, “What just happened?”
“I’m sorry this was a bad morning mom”, says my seven-year-old.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk”, I say.
“I’m so-wee too Mama.” the four-year-old buries his head in my bathrobe.
We were all jerks this morning in one way or another and I truly wish I could rest knowing we learned a valuable lesson on how to not repeat this scene again. But I have attended the parenting classes and groups. I have read the books on parenting with love and logic. I have all the theories in the world on how to remain calm and centered and give natural consequences while not letting your anger punish your children. I can honestly say I never ever want to lose my temper with my children as long as I live. But, in the words of one of my favorite children’s book authors, “Sometimes it happens, just like that.” And as the van pulled away, my boys and I promised each other something that will never wear out… “There is always a do-over”.
We were all jerks this morning in one way or another and I truly wish I could rest knowing we learned a valuable lesson on how to not repeat this scene again. But I have attended the parenting classes and groups. I have read the books on parenting with love and logic. I have all the theories in the world on how to remain calm and centered and give natural consequences while not letting your anger punish your children. I can honestly say I never ever want to lose my temper with my children as long as I live. But, in the words of one of my favorite children’s book authors, “Sometimes it happens, just like that.” And as the van pulled away, my boys and I promised each other something that will never wear out… “There is always a do-over”.
