Oh the joys of Motherhood.

I love being a Mom. Truly, madly, deeply LOVE it. It is my calling in life, and I would be incomplete without my kids.

Having said that, I must also say that there are times that I wish I could crawl into a corner and hide. Yesterday, I encountered one of those times.

The day had been very normal...the kids were home from school. I was trying to help Coleton with his homework while Jadyn screamed for more snack and Paige tried to tell me about her day. Amidst all of the commotion, the doorbell rang. I didn't think much of it as the neighborhood kids are always asking my kids to play, so I let Paige run to see who it was. Coleton followed suit...looked out the window, and then promptly began to cry and ran upstairs. The look on Paige's face quickly changed from excitement to "Oh crap".

I looked out the window and what did I see? (Not popcorn popping on the apricot tree). A neighborhood girl and her dad.

I immediately knew the girl, as she has been in Coleton's class for 3 years now, and is at the same bus stop, however I had never met (or seen for that matter) her dad. I looked at Paige, who was calling Coleton to "come tell mom what happened."

I opened the door and the dad introduced himself and told me that his daughter had been having a problem with Coleton for a few days...coming home crying about things that had happened, and today Paige was involved too.

After physically going upstairs and bringing Coleton downstairs to discuss WHY a parent was at my door with his child, the dad explained the reason for his visit.

Apparently, Coleton attempted to choke his little girl today after school for no reason. Now, this dad was sensible and knew that things like that don't happen out of the blue, so he came to get the story and let me know that something had happened. (Since NEITHER of my kids thought it necessary to let me know themselves.)

After listening to Paige, the little girl & Coleton's (bawling) versions, we gathered that the little girl had been hitting Coleton (and other boys) with a baton for a few days, so Coleton had been hitting her back. Yesterday, after getting off the bus, Coleton took a slip of paper off the mailbox unit (everyone in the development has a community mailbox) about voting to show me (we've been discussing the voting procedures at home). The little girl didn't think it was right for Coleton to take the paper (even though it said "take one") so she tried to take it away from him. Coleton's retaliation was to put his arm around her neck and choke her. Paige told Coleton to stop, and then she yelled at the little girl and said, "Don't you ever touch my little brother again!" I guess while she was yelling, some spit came out of her mouth, and the little girl told her dad that Paige had purposely spat in her face.

I was mortified.

Not only did my son lay his hands on another person, but it was a GIRL. And, if that weren't bad enough, they had been feuding for weeks...and I was oblivious. I made it QUITE CLEAR to Coleton right then and there that it was NEVER ok to put your hands on another person...ESPECIALLY a girl.

I made Coleton apoligize to the little girl. The dad didn't seem to think it necessary to reprimand his daughter for starting these little feuds, which kind of aggravated me. I don't like people parenting my kids, and I try not to parent other kids, but in this situation, I didn't want Coleton to take ALL of the blame. I said, "It was completely unacceptable for Coleton to touch you, but I think that in the future you should try to keep your hands to yourself too."

Then her dad said, "Yes, it is not for you to decide whether or not it is right for Coleton to take something off of the mailbox; it didn't have anything to do with you and you should not have tried to take it away from him." (Not mentioning the fact that she shouldn't be hitting people in the back of the head with a baton either) Oh well.

At the end, we made the kids *and by that I mean MY kids* apologize and agree that they were all going to try and get along...and that if they couldn't get along, then they just needed to stay away from each other.

I closed the door and felt like a terrible mother. How did it happen that my child, who is filled with love EVERY DAY, automatically resorted to such a violent act? What was he thinking?