Drips, Stains, and Restraint

This is the story I read the morning I stepped out on my deck and screamed.

I am a child and it is nearly Christmas.  I stand on a kitchen chair pummeling cookie dough with a rolling pin.  I wallop the bag of flour right off the counter and it explodes in a cloud of white dust.  I do not move, waiting for my mother's reaction.  "What's your favorite cookie shape?" she asks.  I find my voice.  "A star."  Smiling, she hands me the tin cutter.  "Make lots of stars while I clean up," she says. -Sue Monk Kidd, Firstlight

This story seared my conscience.  How I've shamed and belittled my children for much less than a flour bomb. 

Later that morning, I stepped into the lovely dappled light on our deck and looked down.  Then looked again.  Then let my eyes trail down the steps and across the lower level.  Then hurried down to look across the length of the deck.  The deck that we built last year.  The NEW deck.  Then I screamed through clenched teeth. 

From one corner to the other, up the stairs, and across the top level, were splatters of dark red stain, like the drips across the driveway from a sprinkler-soaked child.  For a moment I thought someone with a severed limb had run to the kitchen, but no, it was not blood that stained our blond wood.  It was, indeed, stain.  The color of the newly stained playset. 

I saw the can of stain and the paint pan neatly placed on the rocks where they should have been.  And then it dawned on me.  The sponge brush was tucked in its Ziploc bag in the refrigerator, waiting to be used for final touches on the playset.  Someone who shall remain nameless did not realize how drippy a stain-drenched paintbrush is when carried from playset to kitchen.  Gulp.

I had a choice to make.  Somewhere in my brain was an arsenal of shame-based words that no parenting book ever had to teach me.  But those go-to words had been covered over during my early morning quiet time by a story of a wise and tender mother who chose the path of love and grace. 

I went inside and drank some more coffee and washed up the morning dishes.  Then I took my beautiful gift of a child onto the deck and said, "We're going to figure out how to clean this up the best we can.  You can help." 

"I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't know.  I'll help."