This past week I had a day from the hot place:). I was just having a “mommy loosing her mind” type day and I needed some relief. Problem. My mom is sick. No one to rescue me.

To add to my emotional frenzy, a friend emailed me about her cousin’s baby who was born at 25 weeks the day before. He went to be with Jesus within 24 hours of birth. Having been desperately afraid of the same outcome with my child at the same age, I grieved for this mom. Tears came off and on throughout the day and I was in no mood for managing squabbles (which occur quite regularly in a house of boys:).

Into the evening, I am sitting with Jim on the couch and I hear a crash and then a scream and then silence. This sequence is a mommy’s nightmare. The silence is worse than the scream. Ty is getting into a habit of holding his breath when he is REALLY mad or hurt and it panics me. His little 26 weeker friend Ruthie also makes a habit of this and she is now 2. She will actually pass out though. Ruth has me scared – I am waiting for the day when Ty pulls this number on me. Is this a micro preemie thing?

Back to the story…(and before you panic, Ty was fine…well relatively)

Another idiosyncrasy of motherhood is interpreting sound. I knew at the sound that the empty Enfamil Can that once held the dinosaurs was bonked into an object – presumably Ty. I was correct. When I raced to the playroom, Ty was face down on the carpet holding his breath and Tanner was wide eyed holding the infamous can.

These are the moments I risk going postal. I heard recently that fear and anger are reciprocal emotions. I have seen that to be true. Often when I am angry, the root is fear. Sometimes when I am afraid, the root is anger (as in fear of bad things happening to my kids because bad things HAVE happened).

I also have realized this week that my post traumatic stress from Ty’s early birth is not lost in the land of eternal forgetfulness and can rear its ugly head from time to time. When Ty gets injured, holds his breath, chokes, cries “that” cry…etc…my insides quiver. Having the aggressive nature that I do, my instinct is to protect at all costs. This is a problem when the instigator is my three year old.

When I picked up Ty and got him to take a breath I saw the blood. So did Tanner. The corner of Ty’s eye was bleeding – pretty good little gash. I stood there contemplating if he would need stitches (a stitch actually as it was not a large wound). Conflict number 2. I can’t take Ty into an ER during RSV season unless it is a dire emergency. This didn’t qualify (nor did he actually need it thankfully). Once I got the bleeding stopped and Ty quit crying (which he got over quickly by the way – he is a bounce backer), my fury moved towards the guilty.

I asked the same dumb questions every mother asks. First question is “What did you do?” and second question is “Why?” Do we ever get an answer that makes the question worth the interrogation? I somehow doubt it.
(Note: If you ask Noah “why?”, he will give you a very straight forward and honest answer. “Because I did it”.)

Tanner looked at me with the widest tear filled eyes ever and said “I hit him”. Wwwhhhheeewww! If I wasn’t lit up before, I was irate now. Inside my head I am thinking AND YOU ADMITTED THIS? I know I should be grateful that he is so honest but in that moment the confession made me angrier. And his response to the “why?” question…..”I’m bad”.

I hardly knew how to react to that one. Part of me wanted to hit the roof that he was behaving as if he purposefully did this. Part of me was broken hearted that my three year old just labeled himself bad. We don’t call people “bad” in our home. We may do something “bad” but that is a reflection of behavior. I never tell Tanner HE is bad yet he reflected this anyhow.

There are moments in motherhood when the safest solution is to send the accused to their bedroom before issuing a verdict. In a moment of emotional upheaval, the punishment may outweigh the crime and we are definitely in the high risk zone for this outcome.

Thankfully Jim had the good sense to calm me down. Normally daddy is a loving but stern disciplinarian. Not this time. He was thinking fast to get Tanner as much grace as possible because he recognized quickly I was in no shape to address the situation. Jim’s opinion was that I had asked leading questions and that Tanner just followed right along, quite potentially admitting to what I asked when he was in fact innocent (or somewhat so anyhow – there are levels of innocence:).

Jim then, like an engineer (you know these types that work for Intel:), begins hitting himself with the can to determine the force of impact and effect upon the can. With very little pressure applied, the can dented. Jim’s conclusion? The can was thrown as opposed to being used as a weapon:), and bonked baby in the head…probably somewhat unintentionally. If Tanner would have taken the can and actually hit baby with it, there would have been some mark on the can…there wasn’t.

Still though, I was determined to met out some form of discipline because my baby had been hurt and someone needed to pay for it. I walked into Tanner’s room and saw him sobbing on his bed. I couldn’t do it. Mercy took over once again and my rational sense kicked in. Tanner, irregardless of what he admitted, has never in anger hurt anyone. He is not an aggressive child. Play too rough? Yes! Take an object and wack someone on the head with it? Not likely. Ty on the other hand I will have to watch out for…you might should run from him when he is on a rampage LOL.

I took my little munchkin in my arms and loved him and talked about his role in protecting brother. It was quite clear that he was equally devastated by Ty’s injury.

The next day a similar incident occurred. I walked out of the room, heard a crash, heard a scream and then silence. Once again, I gave Tanner a piece of my mind and sent him to his room (he had again admitted to hurting brother). Ty was fine this time. Mostly mad. When I talked to Tanner I discovered that Tanner had once again taken the blame for an accident. Ty was standing at the coffee table and Tanner tried to help him down and Ty bonked his elbow (according to Tanner) in the process. I told Tanner that mommy was very sorry for yelling (see…removing my super mom cape). I told him that mommy’s disobey God sometimes too and that they need to tell Him they are sorry and ask for forgiveness. I asked God to forgive me and then asked him if he would forgive me too. His response was overwhelming. Without a moments hesitation he just threw his little arms around me. What grace. If only we all could be so forgiving…..

Then Jim comes home from work….

Guess who has a black eye? How in the world did this happen? He tells me that he woke up that morning with a black eye and that he figures I did it to him in my sleep. (I believe he has been telling people this too!)

Of course, overwhelming curiosity filled me at that point and I was quite anxious to hear how I could have decked him in his sleep and neither of us remember anything about it. He stuck to his story.

I would say this is totally unbelievable except for one little fact. Remember earlier last year when Ty was in the NICU and I was so tired that one night I tripped in the bathroom and hit my head on the toilet? I got a good scratch by my eye and I ranted and raved about it at 3:00 AM. The next morning Jim woke to ask me what happened. I stared in utter amazement. “Your telling me that not only did you not hear the incredible crash that resulted in my injury but you also did not hear me yelling and telling you every little detail about my bleeding eye????”

“Nope”, he replied.

Ridiculous. Made me feel a bit better though. At least he is not more sympathetic to his own pain. He may have slept through my little tragedy but apparently he slept through his own as well.

Still though…I plead innocent on these charges. Had I delivered a blow to give him a black eye, he may not have remembered it but I would have. I did not do it nor do I have any idea how this could have occurred in his sleep. If I was Tanner, I probably would have looked at the evidence and just admitted it LOL!

Pictured below are my injured twins. Ironically, they both hurt the same eye within 24 hours of each other. Again….life with boys and this is only the beginning.