The Take Five Pose

It's pretty sad when your four year old has to teach you what to do when you lose your temper, isn't it?

I feel I'm a very patient person. I work really hard on maintaining an even tone with the kids, knowing that yelling or getting angry will simply confuse them, not teach them anything, and ultimately make me feel stressed and angry all the time. So I usually manage to keep my cool with them. But there are those moments . . .

On Monday, I treated myself to my favorite McDonald's Asian salad. I had set it on the counter and then went back out to the car to shut the door and hurry the last of the kids in. When I got back I saw the J had reached up and in an attempt to get her Apple Dippers which I had left in the bag, had managed to dump my entire salad on the not so clean kitchen floor. I saw that and lost it. I knew I had to get her out of the room or I would start screaming, so I yelled at her to leave the kitchen, which of course caused her to burst into tears as she left. I started working on seeing if I could salvage any of the salad when B called my name. I said in a relatively calm voice not to talk to me yet, knowing that I couldn't handle being nice right then. He persisted, so I turned around and yelled at him to leave the kitchen and not talk to me right then. Surprised, since I rarely yell, he also burst into tears. Yay - I'm the mother of the year.

After a few minutes I calmed down enough to explain to B that I was not mad at him, I was mad at what J had done and that I was just to angry to talk to anyone right then. He explained to me that I should have done the Take Five pose that they learned in yoga that morning at school. He showed it to me right then and there: Take five breaths and count each one. He told me that you should do this everytime you get angry or grumpy. He's so smart. :)

Since then he has reminded me of this incident at least eight times.

I bought another salad today (I splurged!). As we waited to pay, J piped up from the back seat that she won't dump it on the floor today. B then quickly chimed in that if she did, Mommy would just do the Take Five pose. Thank you, B, lesson learned.

P.S. Check out the weight tracker up above! Did you see it? Yes, I actually lost half a pound. Thank you, thank you, thank you!