That Mom.

Last week, I was one of those moms. I was the mom who was out in public in jeans and an oversized sweatshirt (the shirt I slept in secretly hidden beneath), hair up, but messy. My children were dressed and both had shoes on, but Caleb's hair looked like a comb hadn't been through it in weeks, well, just the back actually. The front looked nicely groomed. Both children have sniffly noses and Caleb has a lingering cough from a cold he had the prior week. If you looked closely at Caleb, you could see the snot streaks across his face where he attempted to wipe his nose clean. Adelaide had blue stained lips and a blue stained chin from the lollipop that she had managed to get a hold of earlier, but that I didn't have the heart nor courage to take away from her- and it kept her quiet while Caleb slept. To top off our ragged appearance, Caleb consistently told me "No, mommy", sometimes ever so sweetly, as I consistently asked him to "put that person's cart back", "stop pushing Adelaide away from me", "Don't walk off", "Come back here", "Put that away." Adelaide eventually got tired of shopping, too. So I  carried her and my things and tried pushing the cart and tried keeping Caleb occupied so that he'd stop screaming/crying/whining/telling me "no". I'm sure I looked like one frazzled woman. I will say, that most of the time, I kept completely cool. I didn't raise my voice, but rather calmly told Caleb to sit down while he was trying to climb out of the back of the cart and completely ignoring me and singing (basically a nananana song in my face). I didn't yell or spank (I don't spank anyway). Well, except for that one time where I put my mean face on and told him that he better sit his bottom down and listen to me. It didn't work either. I felt especially embarrassed that I looked the way I did because of the way that my children were acting. When I finally couldn't stand the snot streaked face, I told Caleb I was going to wipe his face. I grabbed a wipe, told him he could have a snack if I could wipe his face, he agreed so I started wiping. What did he do? He started screaming and thrashing about in the seat of the cart. We were in line at Target at this point. I was sure that all that could see us was watching and the whole store heard. No wait, the whole store probably didn't hear him until, because of his thrashing about, he hit his head on the back of the basket and then shrieked out in pain. Yep, pretty sure the whole store heard that. By this point, I was completely mortified. Yet, I remained calm... except I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. And the lady in front of me was watching... do I continue to wipe his face or do I console him first and risk another tantrum when I go to continue wiping his face once he calm? Would I even have time for all that before it was my turn to put my things on the conveyer belt and pay? I continued to wipe his face and tried consoling him at the same time by gently telling him that it was okay and that I was sorry that he hit his head, but that I had to wipe his face clean, while stroking the back of his knotty, disheveled head. He eventually stopped crying right as it was my turn to load my items onto the conveyer belt and pay. The cashier was young, like early twenties. He remarked on how he sees things like what he just witnessed all of the time recently, you know, with the holidays bounding around the corner. But what he doesn't know, is that my kids are too young for all of that hoopla. They don't really watch t.v. They don't beg for things in the store, down the toy aisle. In fact, Caleb is usually happy to just play for a few minutes with whatever item intrigues him and then put it away and leave it behind. I'm sure it won't be like that forever, but for now, I'm okay with that. So it's not the holidays coming that made our shopping experience what it was. It was just that I was weary, tired from not sleeping well, irritable from having to get up over and over again to console my crying babies recently and frustrated in general about other things that I will not go into here. My littles were tired and cranky because we'd already been to several stores by that point and they were just as done as I was. Then I was frustrated because I just wanted to get a few items for myself, but as is usually the case, there was no time for that. In fact, if Caleb knew how to say it, I'm pretty sure he would have said, as I started walking over to the women's clothing section, "Ma, ain't nobody got time for that!". But he didn't have to say those words, did he? He made it perfectly clear with his actions.

The point in all of this is to say that I've seen woman like what I described above, flustered, exhausted, ragged in appearance, children acting less than civilized, who couldn't or wouldn't be controlled (I'm sure I got some of those "control your child" looks- and I've probably judged, even if I didn't realize it at the time, before. And I'm sorry... because that day I was that woman and my kids were those kids.

P.S. Later that night, after my husband came home and after getting the kids fed, I went out and did a little shopping for myself, by myself. :)