You're the MEANEST Momma! Expletive!

It started today at about 5:45 am. I am ripped from the blissful serenity of sleep by a blood curdling, glass breaking scream. I throw off the blanket and rush to the source of the shriek. There sat Caler. His eyes could have easily been mistaken for lasers. He was glaring at Ayden with a look that expressed he was beyond livid. "What in the world is going on you two?" I asked trying to push the rage, I myself was feeling, away from my mind and concentrate on taking care of business. "Ayden took my light saber!" Caler managed to spit out through clenched teeth. Ayden's smirk confirmed this. I asked Ayden to give it back. Ayden did as he was told and graciously released his death grip from the space sword. Caler snatched the toy from his brother with pure disdain. Then as quickly as I managed to turn my heels and head back to my room... SMAAAAACK.....AAAOOOOOOWWWW!  I didn't have to turn around to know what crime had just been committed. "Caler D! Why on Earth did you think it was alright to hit your brother?" It was mostly meant as a rhetorical question but I got an answer anyway..."Because he deserved it." Period. End of discussion. I couldn't believe the matter-of-fact attitude that fell upon this child. He truly believed his brother had deserved to be smacked on the head with the light saber for his bad decision. Maybe it was the early hour, or the tiredness that seeped through from my head to my toes, but no matter how hard I tried... my brain could not muster up any kind of response. I ushered Ayden (who was still rubbing a growing lump on the top of his head) out of the room. I turned to the frowning little boy with folded arms and angry sulking eyes, "Caler, you need to stay in your bed and think about the family rule you have broken." I closed the door to screeching and tears. I was doing the same inside.

I went out to discuss the value and importance of sharing with Ayden who stared at me with blank eyes, clearly thinking "but I wanted it and therefore I took it. Duh Momma!" I asked him how he felt about sharing, the sound that came out of his mouth sounded like an agonized mumble of the term  uh huh.  I was too exhausted to call out his bluff. I sank to the couch defeated. The shouts from the kids' room grew overwhelmingly loud. The banging began, which meant he was kicking the wall and the frames were about to fall. The millisecond that thought crossed my mind, the first frame fell and so did my patience. It crumbled. I walked to the room, opened the door, and faced this yowler of a child. I looked him in the eye and told him he needed to pick up the frame and return to his room where he would stay for the remainder of the day.

The term  If Looks Could Kill doesn't even begin to describe the change his eyes made as he learned his fate. The screaming didn't stop as I walked back out of his room in search of my journal (aka: solace).  It was as I was passing his closed door that I heard it. I heard the words that snap a parents heart in two. My sensitive heart shattered. " I HATE YOU MOMMA!" I choked back the lump that had settled in my throat threatening another bombardment of waterworks and replied " Well, my darling boy, I most certainly LOVE you." He apparently wasn't convinced " You're the MEANEST Momma EVVVVVEEEEEERRRRRR!!!" I wasn't sure I could reply. Just as a snake can sense fear, my Caler can sense when I am close to a breaking point. It's not that he revels in it, no, he just knows that this is the time for him to test his limits. He does.... and he tests them well. So well, in fact, that the next phrase out of the mouth of my FIVE year old was a word that rhymes with Brass Bowl. An expletive. An expletive from the mouth that still uses bubble gum tooth paste and a light up Batman tooth brush.

If there was any doubt in his mind that I was the meanest momma before, it was confirmed when he had to brush the bad words out of his mouth with the hot toothpaste that Momma uses.

So there you have it.... Confessions from the MEANEST MOMMA EVVVEEERRRR!