**Which I may have already admitted on NATIONAL TV to Oprah (just in case you missed it), but let’s go for round two, ya’ll!**
I am a very loud person.
Let’s all take a moment so my mother can catch her breath from falling off her chair laughing (plus, if everyone could say a prayer for my mom because she was in a car accident as a pedestrian this week, a car wasn’t in park and rolled into her, pinning her leg against another vehicle…thank God nothing was broken, but her leg is very bruised, she suffered some nerve damage and is in pain…love you, Mom…don’t you feel bad you laughed?).
But my kids are so used the normal loudness of my voice that to get through to them it can sometimes take what others would consider maniacal screaming. Other times, I do it just because I lose my mind.
Last night was that night.
Mind = LOST
Me as a parent? FAIL
UGH.
I spent longer than should have been necessary wrangling the kids to clean up the living room and then to straighten up their bedrooms. I had to repeat myself over and over and the kids were finding ANYTHING else to do but what I told them.
My frustration level was peaking.
It hit detonation point when Rachael walked into the living room and said these words:
“Mama, that bottle in your bathroom broke.”
It was a bottle full of bath salts. Instead of cleaning up her room, she’d snuck off into the bathroom (wonder where she learned THAT technique, dear hubby) and was messing around with stuff that she shouldn’t have been.
A bottle of bath salts was the casualty.
I like to think that the broken bath salts alone wouldn’t have driven me over the edge into the bad bad place of darkness. I think.
What did it….what made all the little cells in the frontal lobe of my brain fizzle and die on the spot was that she was holding up her skirt where she’d collected a bunch of the bath salts and had been dribbling them all over the house on her way to let me KNOW that she’d broken the bath salt bottle…that she wasn’t supposed to be playing with…when she should have been cleaning her room….which IS.NOT.IN.THE.BATHROOM!
Sharply, but not yet loudly, I said, “Why did you bring all that in here?”
She jumped.
Then she let go of her skirt.
Gravity did the rest.
Bath salts cascaded and scattered in a lovely smelling sea of little pink bits…from one end of the living room tile to the other.
I may permanently have a tic from what that did to my sanity.
People, I’m totally embarrassed to tell you that my ship sailed, my cookie crumbled, and I completely lost my sh*t.
I went all Mommy Dearest “No more bath salts!”…although, I didn’t actually BEAT her with the bath salts, I did get a little more Joan Crawford than I’d care to see happen again.
What were my other two kids doing while the fires of hell rained down on poor Rachael?
Well, Peyton was standing less than a foot away the entire lecture/rage, GRINNING from ear to ear, offering helpful advice like “Is she grounded, Mama? She shouldn’t have any TV, you should make her go to bed early, are you going to ground her, do you want me to go get the Tabasco?” She was having all together too much fun. She was like a spectator at the Roman Coliseum, screaming KILL KILL KILL!
GO AWAY.
Those were my exact words. Next?
LEAVE NOW.
She’s no one’s dummy, she took off so fast she left skid marks on the floor.
Now, Nathaniel is going to make someone a very sweet husband one day. Probably someone who has a bipolar disorder and needs that gentle-talk-me-off-a-ledge voice. Because he was all, “Mom, do you need a hug? Are you still mad? Can I get you something?”
And me?
NO, I DO NOT NEED A HUG!
DO I STILL LOOK MAD?
DO NOT TALK TO ME WHILE I YELL AT YOUR SISTER.
** sigh **
Fail.
So, after the living room was spotless, the bedrooms cleaned and the bath salt mess was repaired…and more importantly, I had come back to my senses and realized what a phenomenal jerk of a mother I was…I spent the rest of the night apologizing.
Apologizing HARD.
I cuddled with Peyton, but also stressed that it isn’t nice to watch someone else get in trouble like it’s the afternoon matinee…no giggling allowed.
I got my much-needed (for both of us by this point) hug from Nathaniel and we talked about how mommy is crazy sometimes and I was so sorry for tearing off his head snapping at him when he was just trying to be helpful.
And Rachael. My poor sweet Rachael that took such a verbal whipping from me for an accident. The punishment so did not fit the crime and I hugged her close and I told her how sorry I was for losing my temper and yelling and being ugly. She cried. I shriveled up a little inside because I know I can say “I’m sorry” as many times as my lifetime of breath will allow and I can’t make up for making her feel like making a mess was the end of the whole freaking world….and the earth ending? Her fault.
“Rachael, I am so sorry for yelling at you. Mommy should never lose her temper like that and get that loud at you.”
“It’s ok.” Sniff sniff….breaking my heart!
“No, it’s not. It’s not ok and Mommy doesn’t have the right to ever yell at you like that again. I’m sorry and I promise not to do it again. You have the right to tell me that I’m doing it again if I ever do, ok?”
“Should I tell on you if you do?”
WHOOAAA now, I didn’t go there, did I?
And just that easily, the shift of power is complete.
She owns me.
