Oops!

See this, this is my dog Bean.  He's cute, he's cuddly and he loves me and everyone else in my house.  He loves us just the way we are.  And we love him too, even though he farts almost as often as I breath.  We still love him.  Why, cause he's just so loveable I guess, or maybe because we don't assume that he has any alterior motives or plans to harm us in any way. 

I, on the other hand have not been so loveable today.  I kinda blew it this morning with my kids.  Oh yes, you can be sure that they DID do something that was not appropriate, but I handled it really badly.

I just got done reading about shame on Christine's blog.  I had asked her a question and as always, she came through with some really helpful material.  However, she did remind me that I'd be likely to forget it all rather quickly and need to go back to it. (she's clairvoyant too I guess.)  She was totally and completely right.

I'm pretty confident that I poured a dirty, stinking bucket of shame sludge all over my poor children this morning.  I will be making this right later when I have the opportunity, but I sure do wish I hadn't done it this morning.  I sure wish I had reacted rightly to the situation.

Honestly, I'm not even sure I know what rightly would have been and therein lies the rub.  I get frustrated because something happens that makes me feel completely out of control and then I just lose it all together.  What SHOULD I have done?

My kids had been sneaking poptarts and when the child who hadn't had any went to get one, there were none left.  So I ask my children how this happened, but of course no one knows.  They lie and tell me it was the other child.  I get very angry.  I hate being lied to.  I hate that they won't just ask permission for such delicacies as pop tarts in the first place.  I tell them, fine, I won't be buying any more pop tarts since no one can be trusted to be honest with pop tarts in the house.  I make them feel that they've ruined it for everyone, which they have, but I could have handled it so much better.  At least I think I could have.

On my drive home from dropping them at school, I try to figure out why I flipped my lid on this little thing.  The only thing I can come up with is that it is a situation that makes me feel completely out of control and I DO NOT like that feeling at all.  I have 4 teenagers.  3 of them constantly sneak around behind my back. The other one keeps her nose pretty clean, though the others like to make allusions to the fact that even that is all an illusion.  (I try not to think much about that as if it is an illusion then she is REALLY good at and I just don't think I'm going to catch it.)  The grim reality is that with 3 sneaky teens, I AM out of control. There is not much I can do about what they do when I'm not standing over them watching their every move.

I'm gonna have to deal with this.  I'm gonna have to pray the Serenity prayer.  I'm gonna have to believe that it is OK to not be in control.  I'm gonna have to let go.

Pray for me.