Temper Your Temper

It hit me the moment I sat down, all in a huff.  I’m a hypocrite.

This morning I slept in because of the late BYU game last night (No, I don’t want to talk about the game!) and started thinking about what to feed the missionaries coming over for dinner following afternoon church today.  I picked a couple of recipes out–one to make after church and one before–and began working on the dessert recipe.

I could just get it all done in time.  IF I hurried!

In between my rushing around with ingredients I barked out an order for my 7-year-0ld to get in the bathtub.  And he immediately rushed in, got in the tub, and scrubbed up obediently.

NOT.

No, he dawdled.  He whined.  He stalled.

He was ruining my no-room-for-error plan!

And then I remembered….oh my gosh, I haven’t prepared a Morsel post for today!  Dangit!

So I rushed in to the computer trying to remember the topic I had thought of during the week.  What was it…..

Nothing.  Nothing came to mind.  My topic was gone!

Okay, what can I post about?  What have I been thinking about this week?  Lemme check lds.org real quick.  Anything there?  Hmmm.  Pinterest graphic quotes?  Maybe.

And then…

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Mom!!”

“What???”

“MOM?”

“WHAAAAAAT??!?!?!?”

“MOOOOOOOOOOM!!!”

And the anger fueled me as I sprang from my chair and stomped into the bathroom where my little 7-year-old squatted in the bathtub.  

“Um…I….um….I’m gonna…um…wait until the water is….um….cooler before I scrub up, okay?”

<insert ridiculous Mom lecture here on various points including, but not limited to:  listening, hurrying up, making Mom late, what we don’t have time for, etc.>

Then I huffed and stomped back to my chair and sat down, as stated previously, in a huff.

Now, back to my SPIRITUAL THOUGHT POST.

Yeah.  I’m a hypocrite.

Here I was trying to impart some kind of profound/spiritual/inspirational/motivational/thought-provoking message to our readers, and what was I doing?

Being a jerk.

<sigh>

Sometimes “material” presents itself.  

In my Sunday morning rush (and shouldn’t I NOT be rushing around on the Sabbath?) I had allowed my self-induced stress to creep into my reactions to my son.  

Was it his fault that I didn’t get up in time to calmly make a dessert for dinner?  Was it his fault that I had gotten him into the bathtub during the crucial final hour before leaving for church?  Was it his fault that I was too busy worrying about a blog post to “bother” with helping him at bathtime?

Of course, the answer is….no.

So, here I sit.  Waiting for my probably-failed new recipe to come out of the oven.  I’m late for church because it took longer than I thought to bake.  And it stresses me out a little (I hate being late!). 

But I feel pretty good. 

Because I have a 7-year-old who quickly and lovingly obliges his mom when she asks him to forgive her for losing her temper.

So I’m one lucky mom.