Hulk Angry. Hulk Smash. Hulk Yell.

Confession: I yell at my kids.

Like, deep, throaty, angry voice yell at my kids.

Too often.

I have never not felt guilty about it, and it is made worse when I see parents at the park disciplining their children in calm monotone voices without so much a hint of spiked angry adrenaline, because that is just not how I react often enough.

But let's talk about something happier first, and we'll get to the latest anger episode.

I freaking L-O-V-E Kid President.

Have you met him yet?

I've introduced him to my students, my colleagues, my husband, and even my own kids.

I watch his videos and I want to be awesome, and I actually believe that I am so awesome that I try to dance like him.

And then the people in the room with me are like, "Ummmm."

It's only awkward for like, a minute.

So today I watched his latest video, which I'm posting here. Before you keep reading, take less than four minutes and eight seconds and watch it HERE.

He seems to know exactly what I need to hear.

Friday afternoon I brought home cupcakes to surprise my boys.

"You guys...I have a surprise for you!"

I revealed the cupcakes and Will instantly scowled and yelled, "No! I don't want that to be my surprise! I want toys to be my surprise and only toys!" And he ran to the counter, grabbed the cupcake, and smashed it. Completely.

Hulk angry. Hulk smash.

And then She-Hulk yelled.

(PS Have you actually seen She-Hulk? She's totally real. See below.)

Really what I did was Flip. Out. (Like She-Hulk, but with less ripped, rain-drenched muscles, and less green.) I sent him to timeout. I counted to ten. I still wasn't calm, and the only thing that was going to make me feel better was to just unleash.

I angry-mom-marched over to the couch and stood, legs about hip width apart and finger pointing and waving in his direction as though I were dicing carrots.

"You are the most ungrateful spoiled little brat I've ever met! When someone gives you a present, I don't care what it is, you say 'THANK YOU!'"

I repeated this same tirade in slightly different formats for a solid minute, and his only reaction was to stare at me.

After timeout was over, and I had calmed down, and apologies were exchanged and everyone was settled on the couch for a little Word Girl, I had the thought I've been having a lot lately:

He's only four.

The above Kid President video reminded me of two things.

1. No amount of yelling at him to be grateful was going to make him grateful. Oh sure, I had this thought mid-tirade, and I just kept on piping that steam right out of my lungs and into his ears anyway.

But that's the human in me. At the end of a very long day of a very long week he knew exactly what button to push (don't they always know?) and the part of me that's human (all of me, really) threw up her arms and declared that limits had been met and exceeded and the gasket blew.

All this taught him is that yelling explosively is okay.

And it's not.

It is my job to show him through my actions how to be everything. Including grateful. And calm. And reasonable. 

But Kid President reminded me of one other thing.

2. It's okay to need a reminder. A pep talk. It's okay to not use calm monotone discipline voice. It's okay to be human.

If I could repeat Friday's time out discussion...if I could count to a million instead of just ten...I would have said...

Well, it doesn't matter. I think Kid President summed it up nicely. He sends this message to all of our ears, better than any piped steam:

"Some days gross things will happen. Some days awesome things will happen. Some days you'll get ice cream. And some days you won't. Some days your kite will fly high. Some days it will get stuck in a tree. That's just how it is here. There's plenty of reasons to dance. You just gotta look for 'em...we all mess up sometimes. The biggest mess up? Not forgiving each other's mess ups." ~Kid President

My dear Will, I forgive your cupcake smashing, I forgive all of your future cupcake smashings, if you will please forgive my mom human mess ups.

-Kristin