Anger Management, Small-Child-and-Lent Version

"The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. ... Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly." 
~Proverbs 14:1, 29

As parents a mom an extremely sinful mom, Papa and I learn every day how little patience and gentleness we I have. (Even if Papa agrees with this, it's not fair for me to lump him in with my admissions of guilt. He can do that on his own time in his own way, which probably doesn't include blogging about it. Hence all the crossing-outing.) I have a terribly bad habit of letting my temper flare and my responses to outsize the situation. This includes circumstances that warrant a response that is carefully measured. Take, for instance, yesterday:

--In which P decided to artistically decorate the bathroom walls with the skills only boys are blessed with. I was not happy.

--In which S found a ball-point pen, pushed a chair up to the kitchen counter, climbed upon said chair and proceeded to practice scribbling on top of every professional picture of C on the counter that I had ready to go into envelopes, all while I changed C's diaper. I was beyond not happy. I was so mad I cried.

Even the Packers can't fix everything. P at two months.

Discipline usually refers to the teaching of appropriate behavior to small children. It can also refer to life-long learning of truth, from history and literature to compassion and self-control. The boys received discipline and one-on-one talks about what they did and why they had to be punished for their very-non-appropriate acts, but I also (I hope) received discipline of temperament. 


I pray I may learn to react to my children as God reacts to me, His child, as this Litany collect so beautifully states.
 
Spare us, O Lord, and mercifully forgive our sins. Though by our continual transgressions we have merited Your chastisements, be gracious to us. Grant that all these punishments which we have deserved may not come upon us, but that all things may work to our everlasting good; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Postscript: Yuckiness in the bathroom can be easily cleaned, and so--it seems--can pen on pictures. After some rubbing with a clean white towel moistened with water, C's face magically reappeared, and S's practice strokes disappeared. Nothing short of miraculous. As is, when I think of it, the love God shows to us.