Those of you that know me know that I often use bad language. I have the supreme potty mouth. Despite my religious or spiritual affiliations, yes, I do often curse. It is one thing I can't stand about myself. I want to be a good example for my children. I want them to know that when anger, frustration, or silliness strikes there's other more articulate ways of expressing it. I have no problem reading blogs that have curse words. There are times and situations where the correct choice of curse word seems to be the cherry on the sundae. For example, when my son was three years old he loved to be spun, flipped, and tickled until tears ran down his face. At our Thanksgiving meal with the in-laws Nova was running in mad circles as his Dad would scoop him up flipping him head over heels in the air and putting him back down still running. Nova laughed and squealed in his sheer delight. Suddenly he stopped, dead in his tracks, and blew large yellow chunks of food all over the floor. They just kept coming in endless streams. When he finished throwing up he looked up at the entire family still gathered around the table and exclaimed,

"what the hell just happened?"

There seemed no better choice of words for that moment, even if they had just escaped the lips of my three year old.

As a teen I found curse words to be so intriguing because they horrified my parents. Good christian ears could NOT be exposed to such blasphemous speech! On a rare occasion, I was forced to suck on a bar of soap. By forced, I mean told and I complied. After all I had just committed one of the seven deadly sins of using the word fart or twat at the family table. By seven deadly sins I mean, hitting a sibling, fighting with a sibling, playing too loudly with a sibling, arguing with ones parents, having an opinion differing from ones parents, forgetting ones manners, or asking a question while TV watching was in progress. So, of course, I paid my dues with a bar of Dove. It may have only happened once, but I knew right away that I had a mind full of ammunition. In any situation where my parents seemed to have the upper hand I would pull out the heavy artillery firing the F word, or telling them what shitty parents they were, and power was restored. I could watch the red creep up my father's face as his eyeballs bulged from their sockets and the squiggly S vein on his temples popped out unnaturally. This was victory! He was going to lose control.

I'm the first to say that, if, as a parent, you lose control, you hand said control directly to your child or children. I try like hell to stay cool, doing really well most days until I get tired, or hungry, or just don't feel well. I'm able to leave behind old habits until situations, like when I was a teen, feel out of my control. Unfortunately most incidences as a parent ARE completely out of my control. I've mentioned before that my husband often works late. I'm left to get three children, fed, bathed, and put to bed on my own. We have a routine so you would think the little angels would know exactly what to expect. Each night they use some new tactic to buy them a few more precious minutes before closing their eyes and giving over to the great, dark unknown. They have their routine tactics that most parents are familiar with. One more kiss, a cup of water, another hug, another song...

But then, as if planned, they all band together in a ditch effort to break my resistance. First it begins with the toddler who insists she must be held and nursed right at the melodical last notes of We Bid You Goodnight, before the grand finale she is smacking and clawing at my face like a mad hooker from the Mission district fighting for her money. Then my son is crying from his room because at that very moment he's realized that his impending death is upon him.

A great black wolf is peering through his window, like the Grim from Harry Potter, and he is shouting how he doesn't want to grow up because it will mean death and, ultimately, leaving everything he loves. My middle daughter, generally the hardest of the three to raise, is still maintaining a quiet composure until...

she realizes that the teeny plastic figure of an octopus that she has gripped with a determined ferocity throughout the entire day has fallen from her hands and disappeared into the dark abyss of her bed covers. She is crying as if she held the Hope diamond and the Smithsonian has threatened her life to return it. I'm quickly melting into a puddle on the floor but the fire in my belly is building, elevating to my head and I'm still standing and rising like a hot air balloon about to burst! At this moment I could make the choice to stay calm, I even think to myself, stay calm...JUST. STAY. CALM. But the desire to hear their breathing rise and fall as I enjoy the solitude of the last minutes of the day to myself is so overwhelming, that I explode. I scream and cry and say things like "It's all about you guys all day!!! I promise I don't have fun when you go to sleep. I pack lunches, do dishes, and fold laundry." My son always tries to interrupt with some rational observation like, "but mommy, I hear movies in your room." To that I can only say "Go to bed NOW, DAMNIT, NOOOOW!!!"

After this type of outburst I know I have lost the battle. Not only have I given them the power, I have accumulated enough guilt to far outlast the evening hours and carry into the next days, months, and years with me. I hate that I have the propensity to love them so much and yet still get this angry with them. Their need for me is all they know, not yet old enough to differentiate their desires from their needs, they want me by their side. This alone should permeate the anger and resentment I feel for all that I give to be here with them...

But, it doesn't.

I've used my artillery to wound my own men, in this case, children. The words and language that I believed to be a stockpile of weaponry to defeat the most oppressive, dictatorial establishment have become weapons of mass destruction. My children being the collateral damage in, what has become, my own war against myself. The thing about battle is that most people come out of it wounded and not all of the damage is physical. Quite often the war may begin with the best of intentions. A fight for freedom, liberty, and pursuits of happiness, but quickly the lines blur and all there is, is violence and chaos. No one knows where or why it began, only that it is happening. In order for it to end people have to make a concerted effort to stop. This is where I am. Everyday, acknowledging the need to change patterns and behaviors that no longer serve my situation.