After a weekend of cooking, laundry, packing for an upcoming trip, cleaning, organizing, fun with family during a birthday and Father’s Day celebrations, and early morning wake ups that left everyone overtired, I was too excited for bedtime on Sunday evening. I will spare you the details of the weekend chaos, even though you know I love sharing! So, I came downstairs and started scrummaging through the fridge frantically. Seeing his tired and hungry wife, my husband told me to just go pick up some Panda Express. Music to my ears. That man truly knows the way to my heart.

I pulled into the parking lot, found a spot close by between two cars, checked in the camera to make sure I parked appropriately, and then took a breath. I just sat in my car for a few quiet minutes before going in. No kids, no noise. Just the rare luxury of stillness.

I saw in my rearview mirror a woman walking to the car parked to my right, and she was carrying a bag from Wingstop. Hmm, maybe that might be a better choice. I see her stand next to her door, glare at me while I was sitting in the car, and say, “Why the f*** would you park here?” She hurriedly opens her door, let it graze my car, slams it shut and races off. I had a moment where I could have gotten out to confront her, and I chose not to. I knew that would not change anything, and I also have seen too many episodes of the show Criminal Minds where road rage sometimes blurs with serial killers.

There was no damage to the car, and I was genuinely baffled. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Although, I guess I had. Apparently, I made her evening slightly harder by existing in the space next to hers. Maybe she was parked too close to the line. Maybe she had a day that I couldn’t imagine. Whatever the cause, the actual source of her frustration was somewhere she couldn’t reach so it landed on me instead.

This is a very human thing to do. When frustration builds and it is impossible or inappropriate to confront it directly, displaced aggression can redirect to something else or someone else. The anger within us has to go somewhere, even if completely unrelated. So I understood the mechanism, I just didn’t love being on the receiving end of it.

While I was walking into Panda Express, this scenario reminded me of something that happened earlier that evening.

During bathtime, we were taking the kids out one by one. V was the last one that my husband grabbed and V was livid. “I wanted to go first!!” He yelled and cried. My husband took the other three boys down after dressing, and I stayed up with V. He started throwing pillows on the floor, dumping baskets of clothes out, and tried to kick me. He glared at me, “I am going to win this fight,” eyes blood shot red and cheeks flushed. That was not my sweet first born standing in front of me in that moment.

I took him into his bedroom, and lay down with him on his bed. I tried to be the calm next to the fire. He kept pushing me away, and finally softened as I just lay quiet next to him. V broke down crying, saying he didn’t like being picked last for bathtime’s exit routine. He was always being picked last for games at school and it made him so sad. As he sobbed in my arms, my heart dropped. V was sitting with this quiet sting of feeling left out, letting it build, without ever mentioning it before. That night when we took him out of the bath after his brothers, such a mundane, routine thing, something cracked and all the pent up feelings spilled out.

We talked about it. And if anyone has any advice on how to manage all the spectrum of children’s emotions, please feel free to enlighten me. I struggle a lot with these conversations because I don’t want to bring in my childhood experiences with being bullied, and that is so hard when I turn on mama bear mode. We ended the night acknowledging that not everything turns out the way we want or even the way we expect. Others may not realize when their actions make us feel sad, and we have to verbalize our feelings and set boundaries for ourselves (something I clearly need to follow). He woke up the next morning refreshed and back into his normal self.

I have firmly believe that our brains are naturally wired for the expected, for structure. When something disrupts the routine, even if it is something small, we sense a threat in our minds. What separates us isn’t whether we experience that frustration, because we all will in life as nothing is ever going to go as expected. Instead, it is important to focus on how fast we can recover from that deviation. As adults, we may use some sharp words in a parking lot when we encounter an unexpected moment that causes inconvenience. As a seven year old, it can look like kicking and screaming. Essentially the exterior packaging may look different, it is the wiring underneath that is the same.

As I go back to the meltdown, it wasn’t about the bath. The woman’s outburst also wasn’t about my parking skills. Both individuals were carrying something inside that they had not found a way to pack away yet. Once they released their aggression, there was a kind of relief with that release of emotional tension. Neither were wrong to feel what they felt. It was how the release occurred that could have been finessed.

I will say this again: we are all just trying our best to manage a world that keeps moving, refusing to hold still. Keep trying, give yourself grace, and you are doing great.

While eating dinner that night, I hoped that woman’s evening got easier for her. I hope V’s heart gets lighter one day and that someone picks him first. As that sting fades, hopefully he will be able to find words for it in a more constructive way to exit his body.

And I am also grateful to my husband, who knew that a trip to Panda Express would be just the thing I needed.

Embrace the inner workings of our tantrums.