A few days ago I was at home doing what moms do, when I got the phone call you don't want to get. "Um, ths is Mrs. ________ at your child's school. Your child is alright but.........." Apparently my eldest child had one humdinger of a bloody nose that went on for 20 minutes or so. Now overall this is not a big deal but he's never had one quite this bad before and I knew it had to be significant to receive a call. So my inner Mommy is in total freak out mode but I managed to calm my voice enough to speak to my child. "Are you OK?" "Yes, Mama, I'm OK but can you come bring a clean shirt and some saline?" No problem. Crisis averted. Until I saw him and saw how pale he was and the blood all over him. About an hour later I managed to get my adrenaline under control enough to stop the pounding in my ears.
Later that day this same child and I were discussing what had happened that day, and I asked if it had scared him. He said a little because he's never had that kind of bloody nose before. The next thing he said was very telling for me. He said, "I'm glad you are not like so and so's mom. She would have totally freaked." OK, so Freak Out Mom is a bad thing. Check. I asked how he thought I would react. He said, "Just like you did. Calm. You asked if I was OK and then you decided what to do." Excellent! He hadn't seen the Inner Freak Out Mom. So my lesson for the day was that my child takes his cues from me about how to react about situations. But I new that. Sometimes it doesn't stop me from freaking out on the 20,000 time I have to tell someone to pick up clothes from the floor. What I need to learn is they will probably still not pick up the clothes, but they will learn to lose it every time something doesn't go their way. So, I need to learn to chill out, deal with the behavior or crisis at hand, and show some self control. Because nobody likes a Freak Out Mom.
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