Daily Gratitude - Day 11

You know...I sort of thought doing this daily gratitude thing would make the month seem full of hearts and rainbows. Isn’t a happy heart a grateful heart? Well..yesterday, in spite of lasagne tasting better fully cooked, the day was quite awful. I wasn’t feeling grateful at all.

Mondays are early-release day from school so the boys were home early, around 3 o’clock. Fall sports have finished and Winter sports not quite begun and so there was nothing for us to do or be in town for. I thought it would feel nice to be home and not be running around in the car.

Perhaps I should have sent them outside. Perhaps I should have organized a board game. Really, other than the 2 year-old, I don’t feel the need to keep an eye on my kids while they play. And when the older boys are home, my eye frequently leaves the 2 year-old as well. With nothing planned and no where to go, they went to play in the basement. Unsupervised, calamity struck.

Literally. Into the flat screen T.V. downtairs that is only a year-old. A mini-football helmet was errantly thrown or accidentally batted into (the story isn’t confidently told) the TV and the screen is cracked. The TV no longer turns on.

I heard the “oh no”s before I knew what caused them. I closed my eyes, prayed for patience and went downstairs. My blood felt like boiling.

Weak excuses. Mea culpas. I tried not to lose it.

“Go upstairs. I don’t want to see any of you. Start cleaning something and get your homework done. I feel so, so mad.” I quietly and probably scarily seethed to them. I was proud of myself for not screaming but I think my low, growly, batman threat might have been equally as scary to them.

They scurried upstairs to their bedrooms and I just got more and more mad the more I looked around.  Messes. Food that doesn’t belong downstairs. Xbox games left out. That awful cracked screen.

Even though Seth wasn’t downstairs when the accident occurred, he had actually broken his phone earlier so he knew that his own irresponsibility contributed to my dark mood. He wisely disappeared too.

It was only 5 o’clock and already mostly dark outside.  Jay wasn’t home yet and after texting, I knew he wouldn’t be home for hours. I decided to teach the boys something about perspective.

We’re so comfortable. So blessed. We have the things we need and a lot of the things we want. Our home is large, surrounded by space and trees and we all get to do so many things that cost a lot of money. They have iPods and video games and bikes and nike elite socks and none of it seems to mean that much to them. At least, they don’t seem to understand that a lot of kids aren’t nearly as fortunate.

So, although I was irate and wanted all of their annoying-breaking-things-selves away from me, my decision to make them go without dinner wasn’t just me being cruel. I wanted them to be hungry. I wanted their perspective to include the thought that maybe they shouldn’t take all of their comfort and material possessions for granted. Maybe, if they were hungry for one night, they would remember to take care of their stuff and stop breaking my and Jay’s stuff. Maybe, in their want for food, they would be humbled. Look at me playing God.

They stayed in their rooms the rest of the night. I heard some giggling here and there and Sam let me know there was some stealthy gathering of all of them in his room for Halloween candy and I made them a big bacon, eggs and hashbrown breakfast this morning and all is well but do you want to know what really changed over night? Me. My perspective. Some sleep...perhaps some elevated hormones approaching more sane levels got me remembering that things are things and people are people and my kids are my beloveds. Maybe they’ll be more careful with their stuff. Maybe not. They are boys and they are so wild sometimes so I know things will continue to be ruined and I will continue to lose it and be mad and dole out my punishments. But, today, I’m so grateful for nights’ rests and boys who are sorry and anger gone from my body. I hate feeling angry. I love feeling peace.  Everything has its opposite and anger and peace are definitely opposites. So, I suppose I’m grateful for anger even though I hate it. Because, I love, love, love peace.