A bad milestone

I am feeling really bad about an incident last night. For the very first time, and, damn it, the only time, I called one of my children a bad name.

Last night, Madison snarled and snotted up at Ella, without provocation, and so very badly that before I could stop myself, I angrily called her a "little snot."

I don't do this. It's not just that I have a principle against calling people names; I don't do it.

And yet, there it is. Oy. I think what was going through my mind was something like, "Shock her. Make sure she understands and remembers that she can't talk this way."

I calmly apologized for it right away. But still.

My feeling bad about this doesn't make up for it. But I can't go overboard at making up for it, because then it will elevate the incident to an importance I hope it doesn't already have in her eyes.

But as soon as she gets home from this morning's science class, I'm going to apologize again. Casually. I do want to show that when we do something wrong to another person, we do our best to make sure that that person knows that we understand it and won't do it again. I want her not to think of her mother as a person who may call her a name. Ugh. Just typing that makes my insides twist.