Tears for Fears

Poor Maddie and Matthew... I think their excitement about being home, mixed with nerves and excitement for school, is just getting to them.   They are both a little on edge it seems, and quick to argue, especially with each other.  *sigh*

By Saturday afternoon, Maddie was just FOUL.  Her teeth were hurting, Matthew was bugging her, she was hungry... you name it, IT was wrong.  I asked her if she wanted to go downstairs and chill until she felt a little better, because I could the storm cloud hovering over her head... and that is NOT the sort of mood that I can cheer up.

She goes downstairs, and in a few minutes she asks me to come down (I always check on her anyway once she's had a few minutes to decompress and gather her thoughts).  When I walked in her room, I sat on the floor, and she immediately climbed on my lap.  She asked me if I thought it was hormones or what... because she was feeling so grumpy and just didn't know why.  I told her (partly because I don't want her to get in the habit of immediately and always blaming hormones, LOL) that my guess was that instead of hormones, it was adjusting to being home from the beach and nerves/excitement about school... 5th grade!!!  She agreed, and then she started crying, saying she just didn't like feeling this way, etc, etc.  Then, she hesitated and began talking again:  "And, I don't like all the bad words that are in Virals (an audio book we listened to in the car that has mild language, but more than it should for a young readers book)... now sometimes when I'm feeling mad or something, bad words come to my mind... and I don't want them to but they do!"  As turns out, after a lot of talking and tears, she has been feeling so guilty about that.  I think she was afraid that it made her an awful, terrible person and that I would be mad at her or disappointed in her.  I reminded her of a devotion we read that talked about how God does not hold us accountable for thoughts that POP into our brain if we dismiss them (and don't revisit them) and give them over to him, which is exactly what she was doing.  I told her it wasn't even her fault, and she was doing the best she could to fight it.  I agreed that it had been too much in our faces lately, and we would do our part to limit the exposure when we can, so that those words won't be at the forefront of her mind.  We can't escape bad language in the world, but we don't have to invite them into our home.  I will get the next Virals book on the kindle so I can edit as I read, and we're thinking about buying the TV Guardian to clean up "The Cake Boss."  We started watching that with the kids this summer, and they love it, but sometimes Buddy uses more language than they need to hear.  As I was talking all of that through with Maddie, I think she felt like the wait of the world was lifted off her shoulders.  She kept crying, but they became tears with laughing... she would giggle and say she just couldn't stop crying.

The sweetest part was the conclusion... she nuzzled into my neck, wet cheeks and all, and whispered, "I'm so blessed.  I couldn't have a better mom." 

Another neat thing that happened:  while we talking, Matthew was upstairs unpacking a crate from our trip.  Every now and then he would come down to ask me where something went.  He walked in right as Maddie was confessing that sometimes when she's mad, she thinks of bad words, and he gently and remorsefully said, "You know what Maddie, sometimes when I'm mad, I think of bad words, too."  You could tell he felt badly about it but wanted to let her know she wasn't alone.  It was so sweet!  I encouraged them that yes, they want to train their minds not to dwell on those words so that they won't be fresh/front and center, but that neither are they terrible people.  They are asking for help and confessing... and both of those are huge!  Not to mention that they aren't giving in to the temptation to SAY the words!

Parenting.  It's not for wimps.  But I wouldn't trade it for the world.


I'm so blessed.

I couldn't have a better mom.

language... can't avoid it in the world but don't have to bring it into our home.