Today Tyler and I had a thunderstorm as I like to say.   Quinn fell asleep in the car on the way home from our morning adventure.  Tyler however was quite distraught about leaving and having to return his friend’s car and later about a hurt finger.  He was quite expressive in his emotions all the way home; I am surprised his sister managed to fall asleep.   I could tell she was restless as I transferred her from the car. 

I noticed as I walked down the hallway to our bedroom that Tyler was very slowly and quietly inching towards the cat.   Walking so gingerly as we had told him to do so many times before when he used to just pounce on her.  She would always run away and it would frustrate him so.  We would tell him that his quick manner of approaching her made her nervous. 

As I laid her down I hear Tyler scream and the cry and run down the hall.  Quinn’s eyes come open and at that point I know that naptime is over.  Yelling on my part ensues because the sacred nap was disturbed.  Fast forward 10 minutes.  Tyler is seated on his potty and I am sitting in the hallway with Quinn.  We are debriefing what happened.  Tyler is telling me there are tears on his face and I am telling him all the things that were in those tears…frustration about Maddie running off when he tried so hard to approach her gently, at Mommy yelling, at his ouchie finger.  He fills in what I leave out, “I was mad about River’s truck too.”   Then I straight up ask him, “Do you like it when I yell?”  He shakes his head and says, “no.”  There is a pause.  Then Tyler asks me, “Do you like it when I yell?”   I shake my head and say, “no”  Wow - connection.  Later we are in the living room and Tyler comes over and gives me a big hug and asks if I am better,  “Yes.”  And then things are fine, rosy even.

Tyler and I are the same - we have big emotions, we express them as loud and long as we need to, we hug and we are better.   We get over our anger quickly.  That is good for our little thunderstorms, but not necessarily for others with whom we loose our temper.  Chris needs at least a day to process my anger and the hurt my words caused him.   I expect him to be fine right away, but it doesn’t quite work like that.

Tyler is a Scorpio and a mama friend who is wise in astrological matters told me that he would have trouble forgiving and would hold grudges.  You can see that today on the playground.  When a child has an altercation with him, he “marks” them.  If he runs into that chidl again, he will ususally push them or yell at them not quite ready to let go of his frustration with him or her.  

I am on this journey to address my issues with anger and to find healthier outlets to yelling and throwing, etc.  What I find so interesting is that as I slowly improve, I have this opportunity to help Tyler on his journey.  Everytime we have a thunderstorm, I model how one deals with that.  We sit and we chat about it, we recount what happened, we talk about each other’s feelings and validate what the other felt and sometimes talk about what I or both of us should have done or what we should do next time.   I am modeling the process of forgiveness and moving forward after a blowup.   Although I am not proud of what happened - it is fascintating to see that even these moments contain learning for both of us.