Circles

Saturday afternoon I was in the middle of cleaning my tub when I heard screaming again.  (Side note: this is not an occasional thing, what I'm meaning to say is for the -100th time- and it's only lunchtime I heard screaming.)  I immediately tried to put in those "Mommy earplugs" hoping the kids could just work this out and leave me alone, but no.  It's never a true fight until we can completely bewilder mom and make her appear crazy.  When the fake tears and near death screams  reached an all time high, I finally went to see who was "crying wolf" and why.  Honest to God I can't remember what the fight was, probably someone was chewing to loudly ON PURPOSE or someone looked at someone funny or maybe someone ate more cookies than the other, who knows.  (Wouldn't it be nice to have those kind of problems be your only problems again?)  All I know is CIRCLE popped into my head.

A circle - has no beginning and no end - so do these incessant fights!  Okay, here we go boys.  We have all 3 of you constantly bickering and going back and forth about things that don't matter at all, sometimes things that are NONE of your business to begin with.  Each of you says "I'm only doing it to him because he does it to me!"  Who is going to be the big one and break the circle?  Please follow me - if C does this to J because J does it to C, or E does it to J because C did it to E - aren't you all in the wrong?  One of you has to make the decision to stop it or you'll just keep going in a circle!  One of you has to be the bigger one.  I certainly can't punish just one of you, so if you'd like to see someone else get disciplined, you'll have to step right up too.  Daddy always said "It takes 2 to tango".

Then something else clicked in me; here I am preaching to my kids about being the bigger one, about breaking the circle and being a better person - but they aren't going to listen if all I do it talk, I need to show it.  I need to be the example that will lead them to be better, lead them to break this negative circle.

I thought about all the issues I've been having in my own life the last few months and how hard it is to be the bigger one, to cut some slack especially when YOU know YOU'RE the "right" one.  I know we all feel that way.  Some argue better than others, some love conflicting discussions and debates, others avoid it at all costs - but no matter where you are in that spectrum - we all think we're "right".

So I guess I'm going to be trying to break my negative circle.  I have to remember to step away, take a deep breathe and think about my reaction before responding.  Yes, sometimes the person you're dealing with doesn't deserve that kind of response, but I'm going to be the bigger one.  I'm going to set an example for my boys and hope they learn to break those negative circles before the circle gets to nasty and wrong.