calm down, willya?

It finally happened.

Ever since I brought my first-born home from the hospital I have been afraid to shower. Not because I think there is a monster hiding in my bathtub but because of what my children might do while I am bathing. I can handle messes. It's blood that really makes me worried. I always leave my door unlocked just so that if somebody were to lose a hand or an eye they would have easy access to me for notification.

Well, the other day, for some reason I chose not to leave my door unlocked and the minute I turned the water off (after a more indulgent shower than usual, I'm ashamed to admit) all I heard was terrified banging on my bedroom door. And screaming. Instantly, my heart started pounding. Thoughts raced through my head of previous incidents of emergency rooms and x-rays and stitches and I braced myself for a grisly situation.

I opened the door to find Roman holding his hand--covered in blood. I raced him to my bathroom and held his hand over the tub to catch the blood dripping from him. At that moment, I knew that I could easily make a frightening situation much worse if I did not get control of my demeanor and tone right away. So, I took a breath and calmly told him that it would be all right and that he just needed a bandaid, praying that I was right.

Luckily, I was. It turned out to only be a superficial cut and he was soon back at play.

I then remembered how at scripture study that morning we had talked about talents. I asked the children what talents they had. Brooklyn knew her talent was dancing and singing, Roman's was flipping over things and Greggory thought he was good at climbing. When asked the question, none of them had hesitated. They all boldly declared what they were good at.

So, I think I will learn from their example. I have a talent of staying calm in a crisis. And that's pretty good, I think.