Live Dragon

Never laugh at live dragon.

~ Bilbo Baggins

I read Ann’s post about her live dragon moment when her son some how managed to erase everything off her phone and she went wild. The trick do this is complicated, yet her three year managed it. Naturally, she unleashed her wrath. Afterward, I realized we all have these moments. Something that just sets us off, the straw that breaks us, when we simply lose our shit minds.

I know Crash and Bang really don’t take us seriously (especially at bedtime) until we lose our minds at them. We tell them to it time to start getting ready and they slam on their brakes and move like a herd of turtle through peanut butter. They need to be fussed at. Fortunately, it’s just fussing. We rarely have to unleash our wrath. We rarely become that live dragon.

It wasn’t the time Bang was trying to help me mop the floors and he was moving the mop bucket when it bumped the ledge between rooms and a tidal wave (tsunami?) flooded the hallway. He was only trying to help.

It wasn’t the time Crash tried to mop the floor by himself and was mopping with a mop that wasn’t wrung out. He was only trying to help.

It wasn’t the time Bang tried to get the bus with Crash because he wanted to go to school for pajama day. He is leery of the bus because it’s loud and won’t go near it. But that particular day he followed his big brother on and his meltdown ensued when I took him off. He just wanted to go with his bub.

It wasn’t when Bang put all of the “buy one, get one free” signs off all the shelves at the grocery store. It was pretty funny to see his shopping cart full of them. No wonder he was so quiet following me.

It wasn’t when Crash puked all over the back seat of the car. It was the first time he got car sick (not his last). We go prepared, now. Well, except for last year’s field trip when he puked on the bus five minutes from arriving back at school. He was good sport about it on this year’s field trip when a few of his friends brought it up.

However, I became a live dragon that time I asked Crash to clean up his Legos. He had one job, one mess to clean while I worked on cleaning the rest of the house and did laundry. All he had to do was put his Legos that were in a pile on the floor into the bucket. Half an hour later and not one Lego was in the bucket. He sat and played with them. I told him I was throwing them away if they weren’t cleaned in 5 minutes. Five minutes later not one Lego was in the bucket. So I got the empty garbage can that had a garbage bag in it and threw them away. He watched me do and the tears flowed. Of course, two weeks later he found them tucked away in a back closet he was hiding in while playing hide and seek so I’m not sure the lesson was learned. We’ll see come the next time he has to clean them up.

Mind you, not cleaning up one single mess doesn’t seem like much to lose your mind over. Big deal, right? It’s just some Legos. But he’s also a kid who hates to clean. I’ve seen him spend hours looking at a mess because I’ve asked him to clean it and he doesn’t want to. For this time, I wasn’t asking him to clean up all of his toys like I’ve done in the past. I wasn’t asking him to help me clean the house. It was this one mess, a mess he had made, that I was asking to get cleaned. He refused. I lost it.

What has been the “last straw” for you? What happened to turn you into a live dragon?