Simmer Down

Sometimes (often times) my older son and I clash.  We are both strong-willed, and we get each other going before we even realize what happened!  So there's this morning, when I mentally congratulated myself for diffusing a battle before it started raging by being first very firm, and then making my child laugh.  Lately I've been consciously employing strategies found in Dr. Dobson's The Strong-Willed Child and meeting with more success.  I'm thankful. 
Because then there's this late-morning, after some "preschool" and "baseball" and cocoa, when my son decides to disobey, blatantly, about something very trivial: pick up those little pegs you just threw all over the room.  And the battle rages.  Sigh.  I am getting better at keeping myself "cool and collected," and I do win, because part of my job is to shape his will and teach him about authority and obedience and those sorts of things.  But it is so draining. 
And it leaves me...let's say peevish. 
But then the sun comes out, and we take the bike trailer to the farmers' market, and converse with pleasant people and buy colorful veggies and press our own cider.  And then we drink our cider in the sunshine, and I think to myself, "I am happy."  What a wonderful world this can be, and what a wonderful gift to be reminded of it.