Be kinder than necessary

“Be kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.”

we are one of those families. causing a spectacle at the Costco on Saturday.

this Saturday's Costco run was an entirely different level of horrifying.

the kids were dressed in cute clothes, they had clean faces and freshly done hair (with hair accessories ,i might add) by all accounts it appears that i have it together.

but the fact that we have the audacity to actually take the aforementioned clean and well groomed children to the store, is apparently appalling.

that and the fact that at one point, nobody was riding in one of our two carts, and there might have been multiple scenes as the 3 year old had run away, and the other 5 chased him down , tackled him, and carried him back to us dangling upside down hanging by his hands and feet. (while we chuckled.)

yeah. that was me. the lady allowing her older children to wrangle the youngest.and laughing about it.

OH and there MIGHT HAVE BEEN, just a few minutes while i was perusing the Christmas aisle (yay it's Christmas at Costco!) that ahem, a couple of children could be found crawling under the clothing display tables barking like dogs.

i wasn't there to prevent THAT, and it did actually happen.

and seriously? what is that about??

apparently the thought process was."let's just act like the animals we are for the world to see."

once i returned to the shopping expedition, there was one obviously childless woman that actually glared at me, while yet again, my youngest was retrieved dangling hand and foot.

what can i say?

so while we are making a spectacle of ourselves in public we get two distinct reactions, in various forms.

often we get the good natured looks from folks that see the humor in my life/or the situation. the people counting heads, and muttering to themselves that we've got our hands full, but they smile, make eye contact, and sometimes offer compliments/sympathy.

and then...on the other side of the coin,

there are those that give the opposite , Obvious looks of disdain and disgust that stem from either

1. the fact that we have a herd of children(6 kids ranging from 3-10), or
   
2. that they behave like children in public. or
3. that the children even exist in the world and deign to breath the same air that they do.
   

Grumpy, rude, glaring, disdain.

of course this mostly happens when the husband is with me.

if I'm alone i take on my drill Sargent/Mrs. Hannigan persona and rule those kids with an iron fist.

sometimes even then when they are well behaved, lined up in a row, holding onto the cart, walking as nicely and quietly as possible, i get dirty looks. so it isn't necessarily the poor behavior. at that point it's the fact that they exist.

and to those people? i give them the bird. tell them THAT IS WHY PEOPLE WOULD BEAT THEIR KIDS IN THE CAR. ETC. because RUDE people make exhausted embarrassed mom's so irritated that by the time they get to the car, that poor pathetic mom had reached her limit and took it out on the kids.

i usually just give that negative vibe back giving the offending parties the evil eye, and lecture the kids. walk faster, apologize, say excuse me. and walk on.

and the HUBS? watch out, you don't wanna be on the wrong end of that confrontation.

especially if you are old, and crotchety and taking up space in the world yourself.

what we love to observe is when , a couple walks by, and you get one of each, one tolerant humorous look, and one disparaging glare. (i always seem to miss actually seeing that, but the hubs notices and finds a certain amount of humor in it.)

Can you imagine what kind of looks we'd get if they weren't well groomed?

oh yeah. it is not pretty. (I've gone down that road before) the glares increase TEN FOLD!

while i adhere to the Nazi shopping style, the hubs is relaxed and pretty embarrassing to take along, since he believes that children can act like a pack of idiots Children, it's sometimes just not worth the fight.

believe me, it's been a fight before, so i just walk ahead and hope no one notices we are together, somehow people always know though.

the best part of that adventure is checking out. and the $300 tab, and not really feeling like we have many groceries.

well that and the pizza. and everyone sitting nicely and eating it so we can avoid further embarrassment. then realizing an Extra large Pizza doesn't feed the family enough anymore. when did they all grow up and start eating so much?

i never thought I'd see the day. and here we are.

bonus, we ran into Pierce's preschool teacher at Costco. and had a mini impromptu "meet the teacher"/reunion, since she'd had Paxton and then Hope before Pierce. funny thing was, she's never met the hubs before. until we ran into her at Costco, today.

you can tell who does the conference's and meet and greets here.

SO...Questions?

• if you saw a little kid being tackled to the ground by a pack of kids, how would you react?

• do you glare? or smile at mom's/families that obviously have their hands full?

• who is the boss when you go shopping? with the family vs alone? does it change?
  

• who does all of your conference's and meet and greets?
  

i leave you with this thought...

“Be kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.”

sometimes it's just wrangling the herd at the store trying to get the shopping done and swallowing your pride , while the hubs is letting your kids be kids.

hope your Saturday was productive and may the rest of your weekend be delightful.

© 2009 crazymamaof6