Thursday, July 28, 2016

30-8: Sad Things Happen

THIS.


Man, sometimes, sad things happen. You can't predict them. You can't take them back. And you certainly can't get angry over it.

I knew that my Hello wasn't staying on the wall all the way. I knew that I need to redo one of the nails AND put some adhesive backing onto it so it would stick to the wall, just like my picture frames. But I kept putting it off.

Then, B went out the back door and CRASH. Now, I wasn't home for this, but when I did get home, the girls rushed over to me to sell Daddy out.

"Mama!! Daddy broke your Hello!"
"Oooh, Daddy, you're in troooouuuuble."
"Mama's going to beat you up!"

Granted, I could have gotten mad at B. That Hello has sentimental value for me. I could have gotten mad that he shut the door too hard.

Honestly, I might have been a little upset (and I was REALLY sad), but instead of giving in to the girls' blood lust, I said, "Hey, sad things happen. It wasn't Daddy's fault. I never got around to making it stick to the wall."

Sometimes we can use the sad things as a teachable moment for our children....and sometimes that sad thing is a teachable moment for us.

Do I react with anger? Am I overreacting? Is it something I could have prevented?

Come on, if you had put your donut on the table, versus the ottoman, the doggie wouldn't have eaten it! Try as you might, the power of the donut has proven too strong for little Fluffy's training and the ottoman is right there at Fluffy's level. You can get mad at Fluffy OR you can feel upset that your Bavarian Creme Donut was inhaled by your canine and if you had only set it up higher, you could have enjoyed its sweetness. Shoot, next time, you'll remember about Fluffy's weakness for pastries and you'll automatically put the donut out of Fluffy's reach!

I'm trying to better about not getting angry at my girls (and B) when they do something that I could have easily prevented. B can't read my mind, so no, I can't get mad at him that he didn't get ice cream for me when he went to the store. Ginny & Tootles love to eat my precious chapstick, if they find it laying around; I can't get mad at them for being so cute!

Look, I'm not talking MAJOR events, like death, maiming, criminal activity. I'm talking "Little Jojo broke my ceramic hippo that I thought I could let him play with." Or "Sweet Petunia colored in one of my books with permanent markers that I left on the floor."

They're sad, dumb mistakes that we made that we end up paying for. And there's no one to be mad at except ourselves.

So, look, I'm sad my Hello got broken. Yes, it can be fixed and glued back together, but it's still broken. Who am I angry at? No one. Sad things happen to all of us. And that's life.

Hashtags you can use: #savethedonuts #hipposforlife #helloscanbefixed #childrenandbloodlust #selldaddyout

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