In which I yell at the dog and find a metaphor in the matter

My almost-four-year-old was mysteriously regressing on his Big Boy potty skills (an unfortunate situation for his fancy new Spiderman underwear). My six-month-old had enough bowel movements to get ahead for a couple of days. And by mid-morning, my two-year-old had had several interesting diapers with an unbelievable stink-to-size ratio. I was the only person in the house who still had pants on by 10:30am. I was getting irritable. 

I even yelled at the dog at least once. True confession.:( If dogs could talk, my parents’ big, forgiving golden lab, Emma, would probably be a very softspoken gal. And she would be oh-so-charitable in describing me. “Well, Boss Erin does yell at me sometimes…but it’s OK, really. I am so big and I do accidentally get in her way sometimes. I just want to be around her as much as a I can, especially in the kitchen, where I like to walk up behind her and just stand there, adoring her, and maybe hoping she’ll feed me again. Oh, and my breath does smell really bad I guess. And I have an annoying habit of resting my chin on the kitchen table right next to her babies’ plates. I should work on that. All in all, she’s really a good Boss. She lets the biggest baby give me two rawhide treats a day. And she pats me on the head sometimes.” 

At some point, I walked into the bathroom to change someone’s diaper, and it just smelled so bad in there. Then I realized why. We keep a little trashcan in the bathroom, and I had been throwing dirty diapers into it all morning. There were probably at least four of them in there. I hadn’t taken any of them outside. No wonder the bathroom smelled so bad. I hadn’t taken out the trash. 

Bam! 

I think I actually stopped and rolled my eyes at myself as my metaphor-loving-blog-idea-noting-ex-English-major brain stretched fast and far to find a metaphor in the matter. I hadn’t taken out the trash. I was yelling at everybody (and the dog) because I had failed to take out the trash in my soul all morning. I was too turned inward to call out my emotions for what they were. Simple frustration at being interrupted multiple times for diaper changes and sippee cup refills and toy disputes. Self-pity at having to spend time cleaning up a messy accident that required bathing one of the kids while the other two fussed for my attention. Irritation that the baby had woken up unexpectedly to nurse during my morning prayer time. 

It was my own fault that the morning was so stinky. I was letting things build up and add up in my head because I was feeling sorry for myself. 

One thing that popular culture has wrong (and sometimes Facebook status updates come to mind here): Nobody has a “right” to be grumpy, angry, or mean to others. It is understandable that certain emotions can stem from an experience. That’s where we are called to the virtues of charity and understanding in dealing with others who may not be treating us well in a particular moment. But no one has a right to walk around lashing out subtly or not-so-subtly at those around them. That’s called dragging others down. 

I have done a good bit of spiritual reading about service and sacrifice, especially in the context of family life. Some of it can be pretty lofty–but like cathedrals, that loftiness helps to elevate and expand my understanding of Christian life and vocation. Lofty can be a good thing in that respect. But I am interested in figuring out how to translate Beautiful Ideas into attitudes and strategies for my everyday life.

Here are a few ideas: 

Stay in perspective – “In the grand scheme of eternity/my lifetime…” This is a phrase that helps me to remember that 99% of what I go through is small stuff. A situation may be very unpleasant, or painful, or embarrassing, but in the Long Run, it’s generally not that bad or that important. Think about how foolish you might sound explaining to someone that you had a Bad Day because your toddler wouldn’t nap, and you ran out of Triscuits and didn’t have enough for lunch, and you got a higher-than-expected electricity bill. There are a lot of people whose Bad Days involve much worse trials. 

Have a sense of humor – It helps to be a blogger, because I can often be in a crazy situation and think about how great of a blog post that situation will make later on. If you are not a blogger though, try to think about how the situation is going to look in a couple of weeks–or a couple of years. Either you will forget about it by then, or perhaps it will be a funny story to share in conversation. Or, maybe you will be able to save it to good-naturedly embarrass your son with at his rehearsal dinner. 

Another sub-strategy of this strategy is to make your kids laugh. My dad would often try to make us laugh if we were grumpy or if we had just been disciplined. I used to get so irritated with him when he did that, but I think that in a lot of cases, he was right on. And now I do it with my kids. Laughter lightens the mood. Be silly with your kids. Do something unexpected, like sweep them into your arms and run around the house with them humming the melody from the Superman theme song. Or nonchalantly carry them upside down into the bathroom to change their diaper for the fourth time that morning. They’ll love it. 

One other idea is to take a picture. My friend Lauren’s three-year-old covered her two-year-old with marker body art the other day–twice. She was able to look through the mess itself and the extra scrubbing (and probably tears) that it would take to get it all off. She took pictures, and texted her husband and some good friends later with a cheerful little description of the scene, and a note afterwards telling us she hoped our day was going well. 

Be thankful – I think about all of the people in the world who are changing the diapers of the sick or handicapped. I think about how blessed I am to have the ability to be home with my kids. I think about how I am healthy enough to take care of my family. And my children are healthy enough to live at home. So many people in my acquaintance deal with situations lacking one or more of these blessings.

 Remember the happy stuff – Scripture and many great spiritual writings talk about embracing service, sacrifice and duty. Sometimes, all of those calls to give and give and give can feel like being a Christian means you have to live a perpetually tired, duty-bound life. I know that God doesn’t mean that for us. We have to choose to speak and think positively. I try to make myself remember a recent funny thing the kids did, or a fun outing we had. I make myself think about the joys of marriage and parenthood. 

What would Jesus do? – Why yes, I think I will make a cliche-embracing nod to those ever-popular bracelets from the 90’s. We are supposed to imitate Christ, to contemplate what his attitude and  manner would be in each situation. In the moment, asking ourselves what He would do is a simple way of knowing what we should do.