Jumping to conclusions

I'm a single mom for the next couple of days, and that makes just about everything a little more challenging.

This morning, I needed to grab a shower before taking my boys (5 and 8) to school. I told them that I expected good behavior from them, and that I'd be out of the shower as quickly as possible.

I had no sooner turned on the water than I heard an ominous galloping sound in the hall. Someone was running around. Then came door-slamming. And hysterical laughter, followed by more galloping and door-slamming.

"Boys," I shouted from inside the shower. "The door is not a toy." There was a brief silence, and I heard my oldest son say, "The door is not a toy!" Both kids laughed like it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. More galloping.

And so I had a choice. I could leap, cursing and dripping, out of the shower and start yelling at the kids to stop all that noise. On the other hand, they sounded like they were having fun and nothing had been broken (yet, anyway).

It took an iron will, but I stayed in the shower until I was reasonably clean. I dried off and put on a bathrobe. And THEN I went to see what the boys were doing.

They were turning their bedroom into a haunted house! They'd been running back and forth to get yarn and string to make "cobwebs" in the corners, and they'd cut out different scary shapes to put on the bedroom door and on the walls.

If I'd leapt screaming out of the shower and done my Crazy Yelling Mom thing, I would have stopped the fun and missed seeing their obvious glee and pride in what they were making.

By not immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion, opportunities for joy and growth may appear in the space I leave for them.