The other evening, close to bedtime, Gavin tentatively asks me a question. "Mom, are you doing okay? Because it seems to me you're a bit snappy." How observant you are my son. Well, I guess one could say I might be a bit on the 'snappy' side. Here are a few reasons that might help explain this little 'attitude problem' of mine - explain...not justify.
1. For starters, there were no less than 37 reasons that I was frustrated with our dog.
2. I was already at a level 6 in the 'highly irritable phase' scale for the day and was not doing a good job of 'hiding it' - obviously. (Some might refer to this phenomenon as pms).
3. It was bedtime and yet the loft appeared to still have the entire contents of Toys R Us strewn randomly around making the 'clean up phase' longer than expected, thus delaying bedtime.
As if his observation wasn't enough, he had to go and give me his reasoning as to why he thinks I might be behaving in such a manner. "Mom, is it because we didn't give you enough computer time today or are you mad at Elizabeth (the dog)?" Well, I'm glad he narrowed it down to two things for me.
Oh...definitely the dog, honey...definitely the dog! So, after excusing myself to go do some soul searching while Chuck supervised the 'clean up party', I came down stairs to sulk. Why are kids so good at making complicated things seem so simple? I thought my frustrations were warranted and everyone around me should shape up or ship out. And look what ended up happening...I'm the only one who got 'shipped out'.
Of course, no less than 20 minutes passed (miraculously, it didn't take too long to shove the massive amounts of toys under beds and into closets), before I headed back upstairs to justify...uh, I mean apologize for by snappy behavior. With my tail between my legs, I asked if they would forgive me for taking my 'snappiness' out on them, that I was wrong to do so because it didn't show them love. They all gave me huge smiles and said, "Sure, Mom." and then thought no more of it. All was in the past...that little snappy episode...it never even happened in their little world.
Oh to have the forgiveness, trust and love of a child.
