It's been nearly a year since the last time I cried at the playground. In recent months my boys' behavior towards other children has improved dramatically. They're not angels or pacifists by any stretch of the imagination, but enough people at the park call them, "those twins who used to bite," that I can believe that we've finally turned a corner.
So, imagine my surprise on Sunday when we'd been at the park for about ten minutes and Huck threw a handful of sand at another three year old boy's face.
"No," I said firmly. "That is not OK." I know my boys well enough to know that telling them calmly is the best way to get them to respond. When I yell, they keep doing what their doing, but more forcefully.
We've met this boy and his family at the park before. This is both the blessing and the curse of the small town. I turned to tell the boy's mother that I was sorry. She shrugged that familiar empathetic "boys will be boys" shrug.
I turned around just in time to see Huck pick up the little boy's sand bucket and hurl it. Now, I don't know if Huck was aiming at the boy's face, but I intercepted and grabbed Huck and started to carry him to the bench for a time out. That's when Milo stepped in and threw another handful of sand in the boy's face.
Why? Because, that's what identical twins do.
I was clearly outnumbered, everyone watching could see. And people were watching. And if they weren't watching then, they were watching after the father of the boy with sand in his face screamed at Milo, "HEY, CUT IT OUT."
Well, OK. So, he screamed at my kid. I could have screamed back at him, "DON'T YELL AT MY KID. THAT'S MY JOB. AND, BY THE WAY, IT DOESN'T WORK."
But I didn't scream back, because both of my kids had just thrown sand in his son's face and he has a right to be upset. His wife, who was busy wiping sand out of her son's eyes, did not apparently think he had the right and shushed her husband. Suddenly I was in the middle of something I did not at all want to be in the middle of and I wanted to get out of there fast.
With Huck under one arm, I grabbed Milo with the other and was taking them both to the bench when I heard the boy's father loudly respond to his wife's shushing,
"WHAT? THEY HAVE TO BE TOLD. THOSE BOYS ARE OUT OF CONTROL."
I didn't look at the father. I just kept walking to the bench with Huck and Milo and sat them down. At this point the time out was as much for me as it was for them. I put my arms around both of them and told them that it made me very sad when they hurt other kids. I was shaken. I felt like I was going to cry.
As the three of us waited the mandated three minutes for our time out to be over, I didn't cry. And do you know why? Because my kids don't bite other kids anymore. When they see babies now, most of the time they tickle their feet instead of trying to poke out their eyeballs. They're nice kids.
And a father who screams at my three year olds for acting like two year olds and who screams at his wife at the playground has very little to teach me about control.
Today we chat with New York Times best-selling author, Ridley Pearson. Ridley is the author of well-known crime novels and beloved young adult adventure novels. 
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