Yo Momma

There is absolutely NOTHING scarier than a mother that stays calm when upset.

Case in point:  I just folded up a load of clothes for my children and asked them to put them away.  I go to my daughter's room to look for dirty clothes to start the next load of laundry when I find the previously folded clothes magically unfolded.  Of course, I'm a litted peeved about it because I feel like I wasted my time on a useless chore.

Now, instead of raising my voice to show my displeasure, I simply kept my cool, but the look in my eyes and the eerie calm in my voice scared the crap out of her and she voluntarily offered to fold everything back up instead of me having to tell her.

Now, what kept me from going crazy and potentially making her cry *(she is a little on the sensitive side *rolling eyes*), I remember a power point presentation regarding Stephen Covey's 90/10 and I specifically remember the ridiculous example it gave. 

In any event, flipping out on her would have been a waste of my energy and put a strain in ours...something that I can't afford at this time since she's closing in on puberty and I really need her to know that I'm there for her.  I couldn't control the fact that the clothes were already unfolded; therefore, there's no need for me to lose my cool and potentially upset her (she's generally disturbed about something most days...what I don't need is an emotional pre-teen that's upset about something silly I did).

It was a great learning experience.