Provocations

It's been more than two weeks and there have been provocations:

While helping a child with the before-school washup, said child perceived a foreign object in his/her mouth and spat entire contents of mouth (toothpaste, spittle, small parts of breakfast) onto the floor of the bathroom rather than proceeding two steps to sink. Rather than screaming, I quietly escorted the child to a sponge and quietly directed the child to clean up the spattle spot.

Internet struggles with a teenager. Need I say more?

Last Wednesday I passed my very own Adopt-a-Spot garden in Rollinsford and saw an innocent-looking old lady standing amidst the flowers (some still blooming) and shrubs of the garden I have spent the past four summers tending. "How lovely," I thought, "That sweet little old lady is helping me to do the fall clean-up in the garden." I passed slowly by, waving and smiling, on my way to take care of some business at the library. A half an hour later I returned the way I had come and saw the sweet little old lady with the largest pair of Edward Scissorhands shears I had ever laid eyes on. She had been busy mowing my garden to the ground, in the interest of -- this she told me once I had squealed to a stop and jumped, red-faced, from my vehicle -- traffic visibility. She steadfastly refused to make eye contact with me, maintaining her idiotic Halloween-hag-like position that the low-growing bushes and flowers I had planted were an impediment to visibility, and all the while claiming that two of three selectmen had authorized her to butcher my plants. Rather than screaming and throwing the old bag upon the earth that she had just torn asunder, I gritted my teeth, stormed back to my vehicle, and went home to make a few phone calls. To the Selectmen who allegedly had authorized the old bat to make mincemeat out of my garden. But I didn't scream at them: no, no. I firmly stated my frustrations and then told them they could tend the infernal thing next year.

Report Card Weekend. Yes, I survived it without screaming. The grade report to the right is the one I would like to see. I considered scanning and uploading to the left the "actual" grade report in question, but then I recognized that this behavior would be similar to that of those evil mothers who hang out to dry the sheets of their bedwetting offspring. And lord knows I am no evil mother, although I have the inclinations of one. In other academic news, on Monday morning I managed a rockin' self-stifling when I did not scream at the 13-year-old for not completing 7 pages of easy reading in his social studies book, the sum total of his homework this past weekend. As my voice started to escalate, I noticed a palpable change in the room. Abby started to raise her voice at Fiona about something, Fiona started to look nervous and Elias started to tune out. I quickly made the necessary tone adjustment and everyone else moderated too. Sweet success!

I remarked (somewhat passive aggressively I will admit) to the spouse about feeding junk food to the kids, who then made several loud rude remarks in return. Rather than escalating the rudeness and the volume, I quietly (i.e. hissed) insisted that cooler heads prevail.

Thus far, I have not screamed at all. Not even at the dogs. Do I feel virtuous? You bet I do. Has anything changed in my household? Sadly, the answer is yes. I would like to convince myself this is mere coincidence. I would like to believe that my uncharacteriscally un-shrew-like behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with the suspicious calm that has settled over my household like the first deep snow of the season. Because what is the alternative? To find that I (and not my unruly children) am at the heart of our noise dysfunction? Of course, I thought they were the flapping, raucous chickens and I was the quiet egg that is nonetheless subject to a breaking point. But now I find that maybe the egg's breaking point is what gets the alarmed chickens squawking in the first place.

How long can I go now that I know the truth?