I know that didn’t just happen!

The words I utter after a stubbed toe. (Don't worry, it's clean).

One recent night, like most nights, I had a child awake. While wandering the house in the dark, my "this little piggy that stayed home" came in forced contact with a Pack n Play that was lying in the hallway. And the first words of my mouth were, "Well, I guess I didn't need that toe!" It made me giggle enough to want to keep track of other utterances in the heat of a moment.

"No use crying over spilled (fill in the blank)." In this case yogurt, not just spilled, but splattered on the chair and table legs, up the wall and on the screen to our patio door.

"No way, that just happened!" When the mixer poofed flour all over the counter and my children as we were making cookies.

"Snap." Moaned, after the baby smacked me in the upper lip with a metal spoon, which gave me a fat lip.

"Oh, sugar!" When I noticed how late we were leaving to get to an appointment.

"WOW." As I watched my three-year-old fall off the play set.

"Oh, well." Listening to my five-year-old explain a broken tail light on the boat trailer.

"Oh no, you didn't!" Mumbled in discomfort after putting the wrong contact solution directly in my eye.

"Can you believe it!" To dumping the garbage all over the floor I just swept and moped.

"Ouch. Ouch. And one more ouch." To pinching the flesh between my thumb and pointer in the sprayer on a garden hose.

"OK." To my three-year-old stepping on my bare foot with her shoes on.

"Mommy." To my five year old hitting my shin with the break on her rollerblades.

So this collection sounded like a good idea, but now just looks like a list by someone who's overly accident prone. Yet my point remains. It is not foul language, profanities or aggression that come to mind in the heat of the moment. And when I reflect on this list, a sense of pride emerges. Although I am human and mistakes do happen, my attitude toward them is in my control. I can choose to be aggravated, upset, or angry. Or I can choose to accept what happened and move on. I am overjoyed to know that I usually roll with the punches.