The Fried Pickle Phenomenon

I admit it. I am a Screamer.

You know exactly what it is that I am talking about. You’ve all witnessed the tail-end of some poor mother’s wits as she yells insensibly at her children. In public. Yes, that is me. At least it easily could be.

I have always acted as though I believed the louder I yelled something the better it was understood. Kind of makes you wonder if I missed my calling to be an athletic coach or a drill sargeant, doesn’t it? Anyway, when Ty was about 9 months old, I lost all sensibility and yelled at the top of my lungs because he would cry every time I took two steps away from him. Now I realize that is what babies do, but I was a mess emotionally. The thing is, it was the look on his beautiful face that made me want to change. The look I saw on his face was one of fear. I didn’t want my baby to be afraid on me. I wasn’t someone to be afraid of. I loved him and would always protect him.

It was then that I realized how much louder our actions speak than our words. It was then that I promised myself that I would work hard NOT to scream or yell.

Like all bad habits this one has been difficult to break. I have had to change my strategy many, many times to find something that works. Just to change it again, when that quits working. I have had to have a lot of talks with Ty to explain why when we are both tired, things sometimes get ugly. We’ve talked about what things always seem to get us into trouble.

So, recently I have employed a new warning strategy. A warning strategy is similar to the count of 3 principle. The child knows that if the parent reaches the number three then all hell breaks loose. Right? It should anyway.

One of my pet peeves is having to repeat myself. Ty is essentially the best staller I have ever encountered. (other than my sister, but I think she is more obnoxiously slow than stalling) So to keep him from getting us both sidetracked or distracted, I find myself repeating myself, then ultimately loosing my temper.

So I told Ty that I wanted us to both come up with a code word. I explained to him that this code word was for me to use to warn him that I was on the brink of loosing it.

I asked him if he had any suggestions for what this code word should be. I told him that it should be something that we would not commonly say but something that neither of us would forget. He studied for a moment then he smiled and said he knew a perfect code word. “Fried Pickles.”

I told him that sounded great and that anytime he heard me say “Fried Pickles” that I was on the edge of loosing it and that he should proceed very cautiously. He said he understood and we shook hands to seal the deal.

That was several weeks ago, and this evening is this first time I’ve had need to use our new code word. He is always tired on Sunday afternoons. I guess two hours at church is more than he can handle. Sometimes I wonder what they do to wear these kids down so much. Anyway, I was trying to get his clothes laid out for school and get his lunch packed and he was having a meltdown over the wii remote not working correctly. I told him I would check it out as soon as I finished what I was doing.

Evidently, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear . So he was shedding big croc tears, and screaming etc, etc. So as the situation continued to escalate, I could feel how short fused I was. So I immediately picked him up, sat him on my lap and as sternly and firmly as possible I looked him in the eye and said “Fried Pickles”.

Then I completely lost it. Not like usual though. I laughed so hard I STILL think I scared him. Seriously, the next time you are on the verge of loosing your temper with your kids. Look them dead in the eye and say “Fried Pickles”. It may be just me, but I don’t think I can say that without loosing some of my steam.
I wonder what would happen if I said it three times real fast.