I have been embarrassed by my kids before. You know, like that one time that Griffin told our neighbor that because of her big nipples she wouldn't fall down the storm drain like kids would. Yah, that was embarrassing. I haven't had that middle of the grocery store mortifying moment, though.
It happened. Yesterday. Worst. I wondered how I was ever allowed to have a child, much less three. It was over something trivial. I was already sweating from having Oliver strapped to me and pushing the car cart through the grocery store. SCREAMING. ALL OUT SCREAMING. Telling me I'm mean. Screaming. crawling out of the cart. Terrible. I started sweating more. Meyer started crying because Griffin was crying. Oliver started crying because we were hot and he was hungry. And I tried to decide if I could abandon cart and run. I couldn't though. I'm single parenting and we already had the groceries in the cart and there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm returning for at least three weeks because there is no way anyone will forget this scene. Everyone was looking. Staring. Gaping.
Thankfully, someone came to my rescue. I can only imagine that she is also a mom or a teacher of children with ODD. She rescued me. Twice. Maybe three times. She loaded all of my items onto the belt. She blocked my child from trying to run. She helped me in the parking lot. I gave her flowers. Literally, I did. I should have given her all of my groceries and probably one of my well behaved children.
So other moms--You can save someones life. Probably her sanity. Make her forever indebted to you. Don't look at other kids throwing fits and think, "OMG my kids will never act like that." It's possible that you could be wrong.
