Knee Jerk Reaction

Tonight, my son bit me. And it HURT. I teared up immediately. My initial reaction was to yelp and push my "attacker" off of me. While I did yell out in pain, I refrained from hitting, pushing, or doing anything physical to him. There is this overwhelming instinct as a mother that trumps any sort of other instinct you may have. If someone else had done that, I would have probably reacted differently. As a matter of fact, I have before. It takes work to not give in to your knee-jerk reaction. I do this in order to teach my children good things. It does me no good to hit them or bite them back. The best thing (we've decided) is for us to let them know verbally that what they did was not acceptable and that they hurt us. It seems to be working, although there are days like today when our kids "forget" what we have taught them.

That control of my emotions made me think. I am sick today. The sickest I've been in a while. I've wanted to eat comfort foods - to just curl up and eat carbs! That is definitely my knee-jerk for feeling sick. But I've had to control those instincts and think of what the greater good is. Being sick is for sure a trigger - one I've been fighting all day. But when I wake up tomorrow, it would do me no good to wake up sick AND feeling guilty. This sickness will pass and so will the cravings, I just have to let them.