Carrot, Egg, or Bag of Tea continued

As Paul Harvey would say...."And now the rest of the story."

Before school started in August, I went to different orientation and training meetings for a week.  At one of our last trainings they did this activity where they had placed either a bag of carrots, a carton of eggs, or bags of tea on various tables, and then told us to sit at the table that best described us when we were faced with adversity.

Then they told a story of a young mother who had gone to visit with her mother to share/discuss some of the difficulities and challenges that she was facing in her life.  While they were talking, the mother (or grandmother) put three different pots of water on the stove to boil.  In one pot she placed a carrot.  In another pot she put an egg and then in the last pot she placed a bag of tea.

After about 20 minutes or so she removed the items and brought them to the table.  Then she asked the daughter which one are you?

Are you a carrot that starts out crisp, firm, has it together but when faced with adversity (the boiling water) it ends up weak and mushy?

Are you an egg that starts out fragile but when faced with adversity it becomes hardened, or perhaps unforgiving?

Or are you a bag of tea, that when faced with adversity adapts and changes to become something else, creates something useful, even worthwhile?

That day in training I felt more like a bag of tea.  Earlier today however, when faced with a difficult situation with a student, after things were resolved I felt more like a carrot.  The best way I can describe it, without going into detail, is that we all know that there is very little, if any, reasoning with an 18 month old, or even a 2, or 3 year old.  Well I was trying to work through things like that only with a young man who's a sophomore in high school.  It didn't matter what I did, I just couldn't "win".  There wasn't any way to reason with him.

Thankfully, in the heat of the moment I kept my cool and things didn't escalate as bad as they could have.  It's just so frustrating to deal with situations like that sometimes.  The mother in me wants to sternly say, "Did you just say NO to me?"  But you really can't do that.

Of course by now as the day has progressed I am feeling much better about the whole thing and looking back over it all I feel as if perhaps I was a little dramatic about it earlier.  At the time it just felt better to blog about it.  Of course I was at school and couldn't spend a lot of time on it, so as promised I published this post to let you in on things.  I just couldn't say...."Oh, never mind."  Thanks for "listening." ;)