The title pretty much says it all. It was a great weekend, full of wacky weather (snow in October?!), a night out with my husband, pumpkin carving, outdoor birthday parties, Chase receiving his Bible at church, brunch with grandparents, snuggles and Halloween cartoons. Sunday night after the kids finally fell asleep, I proudly filled the kitchen table with goodies for them to wake up to. This morning, I made pancakes from scratch (no Bisquick for
my babies mind you!) with vampire faces, thick-cut bacon, fresh fruit . . . and now the boys are at school, and as I stood at the table just now kneading dough to make witch fingers for their after-school snack, I was overwhelmed and shamed by my own hypocrisy. Because this morning, I unloaded on Chase in the most dreadful, scary, unforgivable manner . . . and the horrible thing (and yet the thing that gives grace its very meaning) is he
will forgive me. My body and my mouth spewed red hot anger over something that, while perhaps not completely minor, certainly did not warrant creating in my son a sense of fear about his mother that I pray will only be short-term. You see, we have this metal gate at the top of our stairs - it swings out from hinges, and has been up there since we moved into the house and had to actually deal with stairs for our little 16-month-old Chase. Whenever Chase runs upstairs, if he knows his brother is running behind him, he'll dash through the gate and swing it closed so Cole can't get through. It has both the effect of making his brother howl AND clanking loudly with a sound that rings right down my spine. I've told him a MILLION times not to do that, that it's noisy, makes the gate loose and it's just plain
mean. Today, I told the boys to go up and get dressed, and as usual, they ran up, and as usual the gate made that horrific sound, followed by the extremely loud pained screaming of Cole, who had a bleeding gash across his ribcage from the metal bolt that sticks out of the gate. It seems that after Chase had slammed the gate shut, it had bounced back and taken Cole out. To say I completely lost it would be the understatement of the year. I screamed. I used the word FREAKING. Not the worse F word, but FREAKING nonetheless. TWICE. I dragged Chase out of his room by his wrist, all the while screaming at the top of my lungs, while he cowered and pulled back, and repeated through terrified tears, "Where are we going? What are you going to do to me?" It was horrible. I guess I should stop complaining about the cold wet weather, because ordinarily my windows would be open, and had a neighbor heard me, I have no doubt social services would be knocking on my door. Did I beat my child? No. Did I tell him he was lucky I didn't hurt him? Yes. Is he frightened right now? Yes. Did he learn a lesson? Yes. Could he have learned it with less fear? Undoubtedly. I still feel nauseous. So I give to you pictures of my perfect, blissful family weekend. Please remember - because I
don't when I read other people's blogs - it is often very deceiving. Chase will forgive me, and we'll move on, and we'll have a great Halloween. But I'd give just about anything to take back my reaction.
The title pretty much says it all. It was a great weekend, full of wacky weather (snow in October?!), a night out with my husband, pumpkin carving, outdoor birthday parties, Chase receiving his Bible at church, brunch with grandparents, snuggles and Halloween cartoons. Sunday night after the kids finally fell asleep, I proudly filled the kitchen table with goodies for them to wake up to. This morning, I made pancakes from scratch (no Bisquick for my babies mind you!) with vampire faces, thick-cut bacon, fresh fruit . . . and now the boys are at school, and as I stood at the table just now kneading dough to make witch fingers for their after-school snack, I was overwhelmed and shamed by my own hypocrisy. Because this morning, I unloaded on Chase in the most dreadful, scary, unforgivable manner . . . and the horrible thing (and yet the thing that gives grace its very meaning) is he will forgive me. My body and my mouth spewed red hot anger over something that, while perhaps not completely minor, certainly did not warrant creating in my son a sense of fear about his mother that I pray will only be short-term. You see, we have this metal gate at the top of our stairs - it swings out from hinges, and has been up there since we moved into the house and had to actually deal with stairs for our little 16-month-old Chase. Whenever Chase runs upstairs, if he knows his brother is running behind him, he'll dash through the gate and swing it closed so Cole can't get through. It has both the effect of making his brother howl AND clanking loudly with a sound that rings right down my spine. I've told him a MILLION times not to do that, that it's noisy, makes the gate loose and it's just plain mean. Today, I told the boys to go up and get dressed, and as usual, they ran up, and as usual the gate made that horrific sound, followed by the extremely loud pained screaming of Cole, who had a bleeding gash across his ribcage from the metal bolt that sticks out of the gate. It seems that after Chase had slammed the gate shut, it had bounced back and taken Cole out. To say I completely lost it would be the understatement of the year. I screamed. I used the word FREAKING. Not the worse F word, but FREAKING nonetheless. TWICE. I dragged Chase out of his room by his wrist, all the while screaming at the top of my lungs, while he cowered and pulled back, and repeated through terrified tears, "Where are we going? What are you going to do to me?" It was horrible. I guess I should stop complaining about the cold wet weather, because ordinarily my windows would be open, and had a neighbor heard me, I have no doubt social services would be knocking on my door. Did I beat my child? No. Did I tell him he was lucky I didn't hurt him? Yes. Is he frightened right now? Yes. Did he learn a lesson? Yes. Could he have learned it with less fear? Undoubtedly. I still feel nauseous. So I give to you pictures of my perfect, blissful family weekend. Please remember - because I don't when I read other people's blogs - it is often very deceiving. Chase will forgive me, and we'll move on, and we'll have a great Halloween. But I'd give just about anything to take back my reaction.
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