It's Cool To Keep Your Cool

This was the title of J's new project with E.

"It's cool to keep your cool!" she'd proclaim when, for example, he resisted stabbing his brother with the blunt end of his toothbrush when said brother's chubby, flailing, toddler hand connects with his shoulder.

Sometimes, more often than not, she'd proclaim this after the stabbing has already occurred.

When E truly did keep his cool, he was rewarded with stickers of cool things, like bugs and pirates -- these items are still cool, she checked; cars and trucks, for the record, are not -- which he'd then put on his bedroom door.

Half a year later, E's bedroom door is tattooed from top to bottom with stickers. Conveniently, they cover up the marks where wooden toys have been used as battering rams in the throes of a category 5 E hurricane -- catastrophic damage will occur. Half a year later, E still hasn't learned not to respond with aggression when a line that only he can see is wrongfully crossed. Needless to say, the sticker plan didn't stick.

And now J is desperate for someone to come up with some brilliant new strategy to help her keep her cool when, for example, a meltdown occurs when she asks E to wash his hands before eating sushi with his fingers, or when her calm refusal to indulge his sweet tooth with a trip to the candy store is met with a relentless dictatorial diatribe that would wear down the twin marble lions of NYC Library fame: Patience and Fortitude.

More often than not, J keeps her cool. She'll be the first to admit it. She's been credited by strangers for her "grace under pressure", praised for her "yogic calm".  But the odd time she breaks -- when she slams bowls of uneaten breakfast into the sink and screeches and bellows and calls them spoiled rotten brats (yes, she's done this -- how graceful would you call her now?) -- those moments sting like an unbottled bee. 

And this is when she is reminded of words she has often given J, who gives them back to her in kindness when she needs to hear them: be gentle with yourself. Or as Elsa would put it, Let it go. 

Breathe. Begin again.