Sometime in January my daughter asked me if she could have a sleepover party for Valentine's Day. She asked me while I was in the middle of doing something important. She is smart and knows when to ask for things because I will agree to almost anything if I am in the middle of doing something important just to get you out of my hair. So I was like, "Sure, whatever", and then forgot about it. Then in the beginning of February I got a text from one of her friends moms saying, "Hey, is the Valentine's Party tonight?" I was thinking, "What?" So I asked my daughter about it and she was like, "You said we could so I told my friends." She told 4 friends they could come which meant my youngest would want 4 friends which meant 10 little girls. I took a deep breath and said, "Okay." I am, after all, a woman of my word and I didn't want to break any little girls dreams by dis-inviting them to this Valentines Day party I forgot about. I set the date for the Saturday after Valentine's Day so that I could get all the decorations and other crap on sale.
So that Saturday came and we were going to get ready for the party. My husband had to assist a family member with something that whole day so it was me and the kids. Before we left, I gave them the run-down. We had to go to the Fed-Ex store, the dollar store, AC Moore, Publix, and Ollie's. I agreed to take them to lunch in between. I knew it was going to be bad. I am not under the illusion that my children can behave when running errands for 5 hours. I don't even expect them to on some level. They're kids, they have limited attention spans, they are complainers. Even my husband would complain if I dragged him that many places.
So off we went. They did good for most of the time. They were helping me pick out stuff for the party and were getting so excited but then they started being annoying and whining and by the time we got to Publix (our last stop) things started to fall apart. "Mom, can we stay in the car? Our legs are tired. We don't want to go here. We want to go home." Stay in the car? What do they think this is? I gave them a pep talk to lure them out of the car. Oh, and I bribed them with candy. Bad mom award on that one.
I asked them not to ride on the side of the cart and they attempted to do so multiple times. Finally I said, "If you do that again and the cart falls over you will crack your head on the floor. So stop." I said it out loud. I got a dirty look from a fellow customer. I don't care, I am reminding them of natural consequences. They continued to do things like touch every cheese package in the cheese aisle and disappear periodically. I ignored them. It's a survival mechanism. Then we were in the milk aisle and my oldest had her arm around my youngest and she was spinning her around and almost body slammed her into the milk display. I turned around and said loudly, "Stop it now, girls!" This little old lady who was handing out samples was like, "It's okay. They are sure happy girls, I have enjoyed hearing them laugh." She looked at me like I was a big meanie. I don't care if you enjoyed them laughing - someone was going to get thrown into the milk display. Don't be fooled by their cuteness.
I breathed a sigh of relief when it was time to check out. My little one wanted to help me, so I let her. Then she dropped a bottle of spaghetti sauce on the ground and it splatted everywhere. The glass was in one place and my daughter's shoe was covered in sauce. I was not mad or upset, I laughed and said, "Bee-Bee, look at your shoes." This lady in front of me snapped and said, "Is she okay?" I wanted to throw sauce on her. No- she's not okay. She has glass sticking out of her leg and all I care about is her shoes. Of course she is okay, if she wasn't wouldn't I be acting concerned? I then had an epiphany that everyone at Public thought I was the worst mom in the world. I paid and hurried out.
I get so annoyed when people judge my parenting. I may be the recipient of the bad mom award on many occasions but I am not the worst mom in the world. My kids have it pretty damn good, IMO. I especially love the people that don't have kids and think, "My kids will never act like that." Yeah, I was one of those too until life bitch slapped me back to reality. Now when I see parents with misbehaving kids, I give them a knowing look and I say a prayer for their sanity and patience.
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