Crying together

Strangling his brother's neck.
Peeing his pants (x2).
Hitting the van with a baseball bat.
Pounding a rusty screw into the bedroom wall. With my phone.
In between, there was a lot of crying, screaming and bouncing off the walls. Mondays seem to be tricky for us and when these extra ugly moments occurred, I promise I was always within a few arms length, trying to stop it. It's pointless to try to reason the behavior or even look for a pattern. It's what happened after the screw in the wall that I feel compelled to share. I know others can learn from my error.
I lost it. It was the middle of a 14 hr work day for Ryan, so I was solo. All day, I'd been discipling out of love, holding him close or having him on my back. All that "Connected" stuff. Tons of hugs. But the Blackberry and the screw were my breaking point. I spanked E hard. I haven't done that in a long time and I felt immediately like I spanked him out of anger. So I put him in the tub and I called a close friend to talk me through. We prayed, I got off the phone and I apologized to my son. He stood up in the tub, saying "I forgive you, Mama," and then we both held each other tight, crying hard. I realized all we could do was pray, so we did. Something beautiful out of ugly. I unlocked the bathroom door and Zeke too was crying. Molly had a glass of water for me. Then Blake showed up, skinny and naked. He formed "God loves you," with his body (don't ask, I could never explain) then sang, "If you worry, your face will frown. Don't worry, be happy, now..dooo,do,do,do-do,do,do,do,do,do."