Fixing Mistakes

Having finished her sandwich, but still being hungry, the lass was searching for something else to eat. So I pulled out some strawberries and blueberries and offered them as options. She did some kind of funny thing with her head which I interpreted as shaking her head “No.” So, I put them back in the fridge and left her to her own devices to pick something.

It turns out, my interpretation of the funny-head-thing was incorrect. She was actually just looking back and forth at the two options really fast. Or something. When I turned back around she was walking with the strawberries and blueberries back to her seat to finish her lunch.

She’d stacked the blueberry container on top of the strawberry container, and about half-way back to her seat, semi-disaster struck. The blueberry container fell, hit the floor, opened up and spilled half a pint of blueberries all over the floor.

The lass’ first reaction… was to whip her head around and look at me.

There was a time when the kids were younger where I would have scolded her for being careless, or whatever other fault might have led to the box of blueberries getting dumped on the floor. We did the same thing with the boy. I think a direct result of those choices were to make the kids terrified of making those mistakes. I remember as the boy got older and more capable and those mistakes continued to happen, the boy would get mad and sulk. The lass too, would have her own version of that reaction. The result was a tempering of my own reaction and shifting gears to get them to act to clean up the mess.

The lass’ instant head-turn was an artifact of that whole dynamic. She was checking to see if I was going to blow my stack or otherwise get on her case. Fortunately, I’ve learned a little bit and I barely reacted at all. I told her something to the effect “You can just pick them up and we’ll wash them off, no big deal.” She set the strawberries down and then got down on the floor and (carefully!) fixed the blueberry container so more blueberries didn’t end up on the floor. I went and grabbed her a bowl, and she spent the next couple of minutes cleaning up the mess. Then I washed them up and that was the end of it.

I’ve never been one to claim infallibility on my part. When it comes to something like parenting, it can be difficult to determine when I’ve made a mistake versus a judgment call that could have gone any of a number of ways. Further complicating matters, there are sometimes just flatout unpleasant moments that happen. All I can do is be a little introspective, and try to judge my actions, or inactions, for those less-than-scripted moments. I know I won’t always get them right and it may even take a few iterations to realize my mistake. But at least I can work to fix them.