What a turkey sandwich can heal.

There are times when it seems I have chosen the wrong path. A few days go by and my irritability is off the scale. I'll have little patience for Divina and low self esteem for myself. It's in these times that I turn to reading. Buddhism usually offers the antidote, but lately I've been reading about attachment. (Funny that a main focus in Buddhism is non-attachment. It creates all sorts of traffic jams in my synapses.) I'm reading this book called "Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy attachments with Your Adopted Child" by Lark Eshleman, Ph.D. Thinking to the future when (if) we become foster parents, we will be caring for babies who are at risk of developing attachment disorders. Babies are born wanting to trust their parents. If that trust is betrayed, they may become hypervigilant and/or hyperreactive. Our mission as foster parents will be to attempt to reestablish that trust. No small task.

With that said, I would like to tell you why I yelled at Divina this afternoon. We were late for lunch. We stopped at the grocery, hauled the four bags, diaper bag, and Divina up the stairs to the apartment to find that I forgot to take out the trash. Something evolved in there and was threatening to move in. So back down the stairs we went with yet another bag. I set to opening all the windows, lit all the candles, and put the groceries away. Then lunch had to be made. Mind you, it's 2:30 by this time. We were tired and hungry. While making lunch, Divina was entertained by Baby Einstein. Then I noticed something peculiar. She was not in front of the TV, but standing at the coffee table. The closer I got, the clearer it became, the horror of what she was doing. The lotion bottle in her hand, the lotion up and down her arms, the lotion smeared all over the coffee table. "Noooo!" I yelled running toward her as one last squirt shot from the bottle. She jumped, dropping the evidence. "No! No! No!" I yelled again. She began to cry. Oh, I felt so bad. I'd lost my cool. We went into the bathroom and washed her hands. All the while she watched me in the mirror, apparently waiting for the next outburst. I hugged her and gave her the paci and her blankie. I apologized. Then we had turkey sandwiches and steamed vegetables.