It was everywhere. No, not "everywhere." EVERYWHERE! 'Don't just stand there watching it drip!" is a phrase I've shouted at the kids before. Because there's one thing all children are good at, some exceptional, and that's spilling stuff. And they were just standing there...and so was I...but I didn't say a word. It's like someone shouted "Freeze!" and we were all waiting for Mother-May-I to, "Yes, you may." Two things were not frozen. The milk dripping off the table onto the tile floor and the blood coursing rapidly through my veins, heading at the speed of light to that synapse in my brain that says, "Hey you need to be screaming something at somebody!" Honestly it's the quickest reflex in my body, unfortunately it's often faster than the muscles in my jaw biting down on my fiery tongue. But no yelling ensued. Well, there were raised voices but more in the quick-do-something variety and not the hurry-flee-from-your-father one. Oh they still knew I was upset and that is a problem.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
As I sponged and mopped up milk, those two sentences, five little words, clobbered me. What in the world do you model for your children in moments like that? Me? I'm afraid I blow it more often than not. So, they see their father screw up and then they see their father take a deep breath and then hopefully they see and hear him apologize.
Sometimes it takes a little longer than others and sometimes I have to learn something more than once. You see just twenty-four hours ago I was standing in the same kitchen, same sponge in hand, wiping milk off the same table, spilled by the same little girl. It was only a cup full that time and apparently I didn't learn my lesson. So, Father did what He always does. He gave me another opportunity to learn. This time I learned it by the gallon.
That phrase, "Don't cry over spilt milk." came to mind on both occasions. So, I googled it and this is the best explanation I could find:
In its first incarnation, in the mid-1600s, the phrase was about “shed” milk. Back then, one of the meanings of the participial adjective “shed” was spilled. (The verb “shed” meant, among other things, to let a liquid pour out by accident.) The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase “it’s no use crying over spilt milk” and its many variations as meaning “it is futile to regret what cannot be altered or undone. Grammarphobia
"...it is futile to regret what cannot be altered or undone." Man, as a parent I blow it. Heck, as a human I blow it. It's incredibly easy to be consumed by that fact. Yes, it takes a couple times, sometimes even more, to learn something. However we serve a God Who does not give up on us and if we're willing to be admonished, taught, changed, He is able and willing to do so. So stop crying over shed milk, be teachable and keep loving your kids.
Oh, and tomorrow we're having orange juice for breakfast...
