On forgiveness

Last night, I lost my temper on my daughter.

She was out for a walk with her brother and daddy, and while they were away, I put some glue+glitter on a small card she had made for her friend (it was a rainbow). She had been asking me to help her with glitter on this card since a couple of days now, so I wanted to surprise her when she came back from her walk.

I had just left the card to dry on the kitchen counter, and it had a lot of excess glitter that needed to be shaken off into the dust bin before she could 'mail' it in an envelope to her friend.

The kiddo came back home and walked straight to where the card was, and before I had any time to react, dumped the entire thing on the floor.

On the other hand, the son was crying profusely coz he fell on the concrete right outside our main door.

It was all a bit too much for me to take in, and when I saw the entire kitchen floor covered in glitter, I simply lost it. I got angry, upset, held her roughly and sent her to the bedroom, and yelled at her. I did not hit her (thank god) nor did I physically abuse her in any way. But you can say I verbally abused her, which is worse, right?

I felt guilty all evening. I cleaned the floor, I cooked food, I got them dressed after their bath, and got them ready for bedtime.

And when in bed, I told the daughter: "I'm sorry. Mumma got very upset at you. It won't happen again. I got angry when you spilled glitter. Please ask me before you touch something I've done next time."

You know what she told me? She said: "Mumma, it's okay. Sometimes you can get angry at me. I forgive you. I am sorry too, for spilling. I love you a lot."

Gosh - I got so emotional. Those were very wise words, coming from a 4 year old. She had true forgiveness and love for me written all over her face, and in her eyes. We connected, and we understood each other - that meant the most to me in the world. A real lesson on forgiveness....

Meanwhile, the son was a mute spectator....while I yelled at the daughter, and also while this apology discussion was happening.

And he quietly chimed in: "Mumma I'm sorry too".
I asked: "Why are you sorry?"
And he said: "Because I fell down and got booboo on head."

We all burst out laughing. And we had our nightly tickling session. And we drifted off to sleep, snuggled tight with each other!!!!