Mothering Magazine -- Anger Management for Moms: "Let's face it, most stuff with kids is small stuff." -- This line is a good one. Yesterday evening, while DS2 was asleep and DH had just left for several hours, I put DS1's silverware in the dishwasher after dinner. He saw me do it. He didn't want me to close the dishwasher. I closed it anyway and he started crying and saying "open". After a couple of minutes of talking to him and trying to distract him, I just wondered, "why not open?" So I opened the dishwasher instead. He pulled out some silverware, and we talked about dishes, silverware, and even counted some. After a couple of minutes, he put the silverware back (after I asked him to), then he pushed the rolling drawer back in (without being asked), and closed the dishwasher. I'm glad I recognized that a couple of minutes playing with dirty dishes was better than several minutes of crying and having both of us going into the rest of the evening in a bad mood.