Mustang Sally

Tonight I think I want to talk a little about my eldest child.  I'm sure you all want a full report on how her hand has healed.  As you can see, steri-strips worked quite well and she is on her way to being a Maderma official hand model.  She told me she will use the scar to teach her own children the lesson about listening to your mom.  "If only I would've put down the grapefruit knife when you told me to..."  She seems to be healing fine and even learned a lesson or two.  Most of the physical scars I have were never from disobedience, but most of the emotional scars are likely from some sort of disobedient act.  For example, my fear of eating donuts and being caught runs very deep.  My father was known to have me followed when I left the house during most of my high school career.  He would have a moment by moment detailed  list of all of my stops, conversations and even foods eaten.  I may have lied a time or two about my whereabouts, but was always caught.  I'm sure this was one of MANY reasons I couldn't secure a date in high school.  To this day I don't sneak visits to the donut store is fear of being caught!!

I recently experienced a health scare with Chloe.  She has been moody and hungry and thirsty and the list goes on and on.  I took her to see her doctor and was informed that Chloe is, in fact, a female and has this weird thing called hormones.  Ugh.  Now I understand why two female cats who have not been fixed are not so friendly, hence the term "cat fight."  I can't imagine ANY of those in my future.  Today she decided to get on the elliptical machine for one hour and twenty minutes to prove to me she is strong enough to play tackle football.  Why?  Well, as she puts it, "I need to play tackle football so I can get all my aggression out."  I'm in the other room when I hear my elliptical machine being abused.  I peek my head around the corner to find her furiously riding this thing like it was a wild unbroken stallion.  I get closer while trying to avoid being injured by Mustang Sally and hit the button with the number 8 on it.  This quickly changes the incline and difficulty and slows her crazy pace.  She begins to complain about the resistance but soon finds a groove.  An hour into the workout I can hear her in the other room moaning, "I think I'm going to pass out!"  I'm hoping she can work through her aggression on the elliptical and remove tackle football from her brain.  Boy is she going to be sore tomorrow.

We sit down to dinner and she brings up the football subject  AGAIN.  She also explains to me how I don't understand her.  I'm sure this won't be the last time I hear this and it certainly is not the first.  I have all of the usually reasons for not letting her play tackle football.  The most important one being, she might hurt someone else really badly.  I can't pawn the aggression off on my husband's side of the family although a few of them are hot tempered.  I am a fine example of angry.  Growing up I remember putting my foot through a window and also punching a hole in the wall.  My parents thought those were accidents, but I recall them very well.  NOT ACCIDENTS.  As a grown up, I like to call those things, brattiness.  I can't blame it on lack of discipline as I think I've had more physical discipline than most, but I can blame it on a true lack of self control.  (I've actually written a blog about this called Anger Management)  Self control is something I am STILL working hard to control.  Add hormones to lack of self control and I am a freight train with no brakes.  So I can imagine this poor nine year old girl with hormones rushing her body and general frustration and it makes me want to BACK UP.  I sense a pending explosion.  As a mom I feel hopeless and helpless.  I keep trying to refer her to scripture and remind her that God values and demands us to have self control.  Click here for a link I find helpful in reminding her and myself about the value of self control.  For example, "Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty..."Proverbs 16:32.

They say if you can teach someone to do something, then you truly understand it.  There are some things in my life I still struggle to teach with complete confidence and self control is one of them.  It is obvious to me this lesson is being placed in my life for the purpose of actually learning it...better late than never.  I know all of you have no self control issues, so I apologize for writing about something completely foreign this evening.  Or is it?  Goodnight Friends!