Stuck on It’s YOUR Fault!

Monday afternoons are challenging for me.

I drive my kids to various extra-curricular activities, drop one kid off here, drop another kid off there, do a food shop in between, pick one kid up and then pick the other kid up and then finally head home.

It’s quite exhausting and by the time we return home it’s nearly 7 pm.

When I walk into the house with my packages, it’s never quite clear if my other two children, who stayed home with my husband, ate dinner or not.

Last night, I came home famished and noticed there was no dinner on the table.

I asked my husband if he could make a salad which he generously agreed to.

As I was putting the groceries away, I heard my husband tell the kids the salad was ready, but no one came to the island to eat.

“I don’t think anyone wants to eat,” he said to me.

“Great,” I responded. “A quiet dinner just the two of us.”

We just started eating when our five-year old approached the island and started bouncing up and down yelling, “I want salad! I want salad!”

“OK,” I responded, “So sit down!”

But, he kept bouncing.

And then inadvertently hit his head on the corner of the island.

Agh!

He started to scream.

And so did I.

I turned to my husband and whined, “Why did you say the kids don’t want to eat?”

Dumbfounded, he responded defensively, “What’s the connection between whether or not the kids came to the table and the fact that Amir just hit his head? Are you trying to blame me for Amir getting hurt?”

Feeling the situation escalating, I responded in an extremely calm voice, “You don’t need to yell at me.”

“But, why do you do that?” he continued to insist.

And all during this exchange, our son was still screaming and receiving no attention.

So, I turned to him, gave him some ice and a big hug.

He calmed down within seconds, climbed up to his bar stool, and began eating.

But, my husband and I weren’t done with the scene.

“Can we talk about what just happened?” my husband initiated.

“No, I’d rather not talk right now,” I replied.

“Well, I’d like to talk about it,” he insisted.

Frustrated with his insistence, I stopped and quickly thought about it. I told myself I was stuck on frustration. I uncovered one belief: Because my husband did not insist that all our children come to the table, Amir hit his head. I checked on my belief and realized it wasn’t 100% accurate. In fact, it was far from the truth.  I considered that the incident had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not my husband insisted our children eat with us and I considered I was wrong for blaming my husband for it.

“Look. I got stuck. I’m sorry. Can we move on with our lives?” I pleaded.

“Ah. An apology. It’s all I wanted to hear,” he said.

Hmph.

And then I began to cry right into my bowl of salad.

Not because of my husband’s behavior, but because I was mad at myself when, in the heat of the moment, I forgot to pause.

To stop immediately when I get triggered.

Then I remembered I forgot “K”.

So, in that moment, I held myself in compassion and told myself that it was OK I got stuck on frustration in the first place and that while I have the best intentions to slow down my lightning fast reactivity, I don’t always succeed because I’m not perfect.

With that, I became grateful my husband accepted my apology and grateful for having the tools to be able to get unstuck and move on with my life and with mindful well-being.

STUCK on You Did What To Your New Closet??

Today I woke up with an itch to clean the house.

Maybe it’s because I’ve kind of neglected my house over the past few weeks.

Maybe it’s because today is the first day of winter school break, I have no work and I have no activities planned for the kids today.

So, when I woke up, I straight away started to pick up and clean up.

Call me crazy, but that’s what I was doing at 6 AM.

And my two youngest children who were watching me got excited to join in.

(Because who said kids know how to sleep past 6 AM when it’s vacation? And who said kids don’t like to clean the house during their winter break from school?)

“Can we help?” they screamed.

“Uh, sure,” take these cloths and start dusting.

And off they went.

They dusted my bedroom.

They dusted the dining room.

They washed down the front of the refrigerator and the pantry closet.

“What next?” they asked eagerly.

“Uh, your room?” I suggested.

“Why don’t you check out the status of your room? Pick up the clothes off of the floor. Make your beds. You know, just clean up.”

And, off they went.

Two eager beavers.

It was a wonderful sight to see.

Because it doesn’t happen too often.

Or ever.

As I went to wash the dishes, I sung some morning prayers to myself and reminded myself how blessed I am.

I finished the dishes and called the kids over for breakfast.

When they finished eating, I told them to get dressed and I would take them to the playground.

When I cleaned up the breakfast table and did the dishes again (I do the dishes approximately 15 times a day), one of my children called from his room because he needed some help getting dressed.

“Sure, here I come,” I said with a hop and skip.

I looked at my 4-year-old son who was only half dressed.

“How can I help you?”

And then I looked at the floor to ceiling custom-made closet in their bedroom.

The beige one.

The new one.

The one with fresh red crayon drawn all over it.

“What is this?” I screamed.

My youngest pointed to my 3rd child and said blamingly, “He told me to do it.”

“What?” I asked, looking at my 3rd child.

“Why would you tell him to color on your closet?”

“Because the closet was clean,” he responded slowly and innocently.

“Clean? What are you talking about?” I was dumbstruck.

“Well,” he continued, “I couldn’t clean the front of the closet because it was already clean.  So, we put crayon on it so that we could clean it up.”

I looked at him incredulously.

Did I just hear what I thought I heard?

Is this kid for real?

Furious, I yelled, “Well, clean it up! We are not leaving this house until all of that red is off!” and stormed out of their room.

The audacity!

The chutzpah!

What was he thinking?

Why would he do that?

And in that moment, I had a flashback.

Going back to about 1980 when I was about seven years old.

When my younger brother and I colored on the white walls of the living room in the house I grew up.

With crayon.

Lots of them.

(Though, I don’t think we did it because the walls were looking too clean.  I think I told him to join me because the walls were looking too plain to me. They needed a bit of decorating for my taste.)

Anyway, I won’t ever forget that.

Because I remember getting yelled at.

And not quite understanding what I did that was so terrible.

And I also remember having to clean it up.

IMMEDIATELY!

Yikes!

Back to here.

Stuck on anger with my son.

And I didn’t want to stay stuck on anger with him.

So, I processed.

*****

S. Stop. I stopped and took a deep breath.

T. Tell. I was stuck on anger. I felt it in my face.

U. Uncover. I believed that my kids should know by this age (4 and 7) that coloring on the walls is not acceptable and it’s not an option.

C. Consider. I considered that my son really had no bad intentions. I considered that, as they were in the process of coloring, my son really believed he would be able to remove it easily with his rag, just as he was successful in cleaning up the rest of the house. I considered that they were just being creative, and creativity is something I honor and encourage in my kids. I considered that my sons felt badly and wrong for what they did. I considered, “What’s really the big deal? It’s just a closet.”

I went back into his room and witnessed the two boys working quite hard at getting that color off.

They were giggling while they worked.

My frown turned into a smile.

I told my sons that I was sorry that I yelled at them.

I told them I just reacted automatically in the moment.

And I reminded them we only color on paper, not furniture.

K. OK. I got stuck on anger and it’s ok.  Processing through it helped me notice how I react automatically sometimes and it created space for an apology that I needed to say and that my kids needed to hear.

It also helped remind me that my kids and I don’t always think alike.

STUCK on Thinking the Worst

Last night my husband and daughter, along with a few other adults and teenagers, went to see the play, The Wave.

The play is based on an extraordinary novel, that “explores the nature of fascim and the appeal of mass movements through the true-life story of a California high school which began an experiment in the 1960’s that rapidly ran out of control.”

I saw the movie when I was in high school.

And as my daughter is beginning to learn about and read Holocaust literature on her own, I very much wanted her to see this play.

Apparently, it was amazing.

Yet, I didn’t hear that from my daughter.

Because my husband arrived home solo after the show.

Apparently, since the group traveled in two cars, my husband decided to take advantage of being off of the kibbutz to go food shopping when the play was over.

Not wanting to go food shopping, my daughter chose to go with the rest of the group in order to get home right away.

But, she didn’t.

“Where’s Ayalah?”, I asked my husband as he entered the house with the groceries.

“I don’t know.  What? She’s not home yet?  She should have been home over an hour ago,” he said.

Not the kind of news any parent wants to hear.

Where could they be?

I bet they just stopped for a bit to eat, I thought to myself.

Simple answer.

That’s all it could have been.

Right?

So, I called my daughter just to check in.

No answer.

I called the other adults in the group.

No answers.

I sent one text.

No answer.

I called one of the spouses waiting at home.

Who knew nothing about what was going on.

And then I panicked.

More than that, I got stuck.

On thinking the worst.

I quickly stepped outside so as not to frighten the rest of my family.

With my “stuck” thoughts.

A horrific car accident.

Israel is notoriously known for its high rate of fatal car accidents.

I’m sure that’s what it is.

That’s why no one is answering the phone.

They’re probably all….

Wait.

Wouldn’t it be on the news?

Wouldn’t have someone contacted us?

And, of course, in light of the recent abominable news coming from Jerusalem, I got stuck on…

Worse than the worst.

A terrorist attack.

Just outside the theater.

NO!!!!

It can’t be!!!!

And just as I was preparing myself for the worst of the worst, preparing myself to have to find the light within the darkness as so many are having to do during these difficult times, preparing myself for how to move on….,

I heard footsteps running down the path towards our house.

“Ayalah?” I called out.

“Yeah, hi mom.”

“I called you!!! You didn’t answer!!!!”

“Yeah, I just got it now.  We stopped for pizza.”

Oh.

With a deep exhalation, I closed my eyes.

Great.

Pizza.

So glad.

And the show?

Amazing!

So glad.

And so grateful a happy reality woke me up from my horrendous stuck thoughts.

And that I didn’t have to personally deal with the worst of the worst.

And instead can working on heeding the request of the 4 widows and orphans of the most recent terrorist attack, to set aside the day of Shabbat as a day of unconditional love, a day during which we will refrain from words of disagreement and division, from words of gossip and slander.

May it be Thy will.