I was walking w/the kids back to the car after dinner out. My d decides to shuffle through the slush which irritates me bc she is wearing new, white and pink tennis shoes. I said, "No, you don't slide your feet through slush!" Then I caught myself and said something about "You slide your feet on ice, silly. When you slide through slush you get your shoes all smushy!" and I said it in a sweet teasing voice.
My son says, "How do you do that?" I said, "What?" He said, "Take something bad and turn it into something good." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Gigi dragging her shoes in the mush. Daddy would have just yelled at us. You always take something bad and turn it into something good, and he takes something bad and gets mad and keeps it bad....he just would have yelled."
Then at bedtime he yelled at me bc he wanted to look at something on the computer. I told him yelling at me was unacceptable, just as he shouldn't yell at his dad or sister. He said he never yells at dad. I said, "Then why yell at me?" He said he was afraid of his dad so he would never yell at him...
I told him I was sorry his dad yelled at him so much and I wished they could fix it. He said he doesn't like to talk to his dad about the yelling bc it will just make him mad. He and his sis have been talking again about how nice it would be if their dad came back home to stay, as their Christmas present.
So I took advantage of the moment and said, "I know you guys want Daddy to come home but you know a big reason why he isn't here is because of the yelling and being mad. He knows he can't come live here unless he learns how to not yell and be so mad." And Nathan really got it, he said it would not be good if he lived with us but was mad all the time. And then he said it was too bad because he didn't know if his dad could help getting so mad so he didn't think he would change...
At that point I changed the subject and cuddled and tickled the kids for awhile so the evening ended on a good note. Both kids are excited to have Mommy days over Christmas break, when we will be able to hang out at home together.
