When I was on my way home from the dentist yesterday, I swung by the health food store to get some toothpaste. I was scanning the shelves in the herb department for something else when two little children about Clark and Trevor's ages walked in with their mother. I didn't pay that much attention to them, but I heard the little boy (the other was a girl) say something to his mom. The mom very enthusiastically responded in a sing-songy voice. I heard her saying, "Oh that is silly, silly, silly," over and over again. I looked out of the corner of my eye and she was literally bouncing from left foot to right foot while she was saying this. Oddly, her back was to the children. They weren't even listening to her.
Secretly I wondered if she were the positive-parenting kind of mom who always speaks to her children in happy tones and never gets irritated or flustered with them. I always wondered how that worked.
Very directly, one of the store ladies came up to the woman and said, "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to keep your children off the shelves." They had been scaling the shelving behind her back. "I don't want them to get hurt."*
Oh, that's the typical polite thing to say, I thought.
Then the store lady added, "And I don't want them breaking stuff."
Oh, so she was going to get to the point afterall, I chuckled to myself.
I went on paying as little attention to them as their distracting behavior permitted me when all of a sudden I heard the crash of glass at the front of the store.
Uh oh, I thought, this can't be good.
I heard the mom let out a very loud explicative and she started to unravel very quickly. She was ordering the children to GET BACK! GET BACK! and "Do you have a broom?" and "I'll go buy another flower pot!" and "Oh, x#Q$@#%$%^&~~!!!!"
One look at the store ladies' faces and I was glad I wasn't in there with Clark and Trevor. Realistically, I could see me in an equally embarrassing situation in public even though I'd like to think I would be better composed and my children better trained. Sigh. Such is life on this parenting road.
I felt bad for the lady. I weighed whether I would be of help or humiliation to her to stoop down to help her pick up the shards of broken flower pot. I decided if I were in her shoes I would want to disappear completely and not be of further notice, so I walked on out of the store without looking her way. I thought it was the mom thing to do. :)
I had just heard a Christian broadcast earlier in the day encouraging parents to use our children's mistakes/failures/disobedience as opportunities to teach them how they might behave in the future instead of making it all about ME as a parent and how upset the incident has made ME. Hmmmm....food for thought and very hard to remember when in the thick of a hugely embarrassing situation!
~Colleen
*I didn't know they were scaling the shelves either because there was a short section of shelving between where I stood and where the children were climbing up the wall, obscuring my view.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
A Post Without a Title
Well, the weather map always looks more promising WEST of us than it ever does RIGHT HERE. While some of our northern and southern neighbors are getting some rainfall, we remain in drought status. It's starting to feel personal. Sigh.
The boys and I helped Paul sort out some beef cows to take to the butcher last evening. Crazy job. I feel like a real cattle wrangler when we're doing stuff like that. Only we don't have horses. Our pastures are looking like the old, wild west with dust and acres of parched grasses. This is just not normal for us this time of year. We continue to feed hay.
Shannah volunteered to take care of the little people so I could go with Paul to haul the cattle to the butcher shop. She was flying solo because the other girls were gone: Audrey to her classes and Maria had stuff to do in town.
It's 3 AM. My trip to the dentist yesterday has me sitting here with a dull but constant reminder in my jaw. I notice Logan's work truck is missing from the driveway, so I assume he left for work already. I saw him for about 10 minutes in passing yesterday afternoon sometime.
I thought I saw Blake's old, green truck out on the road when we were chasing a particularly determined cow. That would be a good thing. Blake and Logan have been trying to get it road worthy so it can be driven to Vermont for a wedding. I will say it HAD been road worthy BEFORE....but Blake somehow or another wanted to try another engine (or something). He's zany like that.
Oh, the wedding....Blake's friend and former employee Dwayne is getting married to Christine's dear friend Holly this week end. Dwayne is the one who broke his back when he got run over by a truck he was fixing back in November 2010. He is all healed up now and running a tire shop in New York state.
One of the funniest memories I have of Dwayne is how he was in charge of diaper duty for Clark when Blake and Dwayne first started the shop. I know that sounds weird. Let me explain. Back in May 2009, Blake started renting the shop where he is now when he decided to take flight from our cramped little farm shop where he had been working. Dwayne was working with him here at the farm even before the "new" shop opened up.
Clark was Blake's special little buddy, and Blake would take him to work with him quite a bit. Clark would've been almost 3 at the time and still in diapers. Blake changes no diapers. And neither did Dwayne. Sooooo, they were fine having the little sidekick with them, but if and when Clark needed a diaper change, they called/texted me and I would go to the shop to deal with it. They being Dwayne. I thought it was funny that somehow Dwayne got to the be the diaper change alerter. Sometimes Dwayne even brought Clark home for changes!! This was even funnier. Like why was Dwayne ever in charge of this to start with??? It was the order the guys established, I guess. I offered to send a stack of diapers to the shop for them to do it themselves, but they declined. Blake (and presumably Dwayne) wanted Clark there....just not his diapers. Boy did Clark come home greasy from there!!
Gotta run....and maybe get some sleep. (What's that???)
~Colleen
The boys and I helped Paul sort out some beef cows to take to the butcher last evening. Crazy job. I feel like a real cattle wrangler when we're doing stuff like that. Only we don't have horses. Our pastures are looking like the old, wild west with dust and acres of parched grasses. This is just not normal for us this time of year. We continue to feed hay.
Shannah volunteered to take care of the little people so I could go with Paul to haul the cattle to the butcher shop. She was flying solo because the other girls were gone: Audrey to her classes and Maria had stuff to do in town.
It's 3 AM. My trip to the dentist yesterday has me sitting here with a dull but constant reminder in my jaw. I notice Logan's work truck is missing from the driveway, so I assume he left for work already. I saw him for about 10 minutes in passing yesterday afternoon sometime.
I thought I saw Blake's old, green truck out on the road when we were chasing a particularly determined cow. That would be a good thing. Blake and Logan have been trying to get it road worthy so it can be driven to Vermont for a wedding. I will say it HAD been road worthy BEFORE....but Blake somehow or another wanted to try another engine (or something). He's zany like that.
Oh, the wedding....Blake's friend and former employee Dwayne is getting married to Christine's dear friend Holly this week end. Dwayne is the one who broke his back when he got run over by a truck he was fixing back in November 2010. He is all healed up now and running a tire shop in New York state.
One of the funniest memories I have of Dwayne is how he was in charge of diaper duty for Clark when Blake and Dwayne first started the shop. I know that sounds weird. Let me explain. Back in May 2009, Blake started renting the shop where he is now when he decided to take flight from our cramped little farm shop where he had been working. Dwayne was working with him here at the farm even before the "new" shop opened up.
Clark was Blake's special little buddy, and Blake would take him to work with him quite a bit. Clark would've been almost 3 at the time and still in diapers. Blake changes no diapers. And neither did Dwayne. Sooooo, they were fine having the little sidekick with them, but if and when Clark needed a diaper change, they called/texted me and I would go to the shop to deal with it. They being Dwayne. I thought it was funny that somehow Dwayne got to the be the diaper change alerter. Sometimes Dwayne even brought Clark home for changes!! This was even funnier. Like why was Dwayne ever in charge of this to start with??? It was the order the guys established, I guess. I offered to send a stack of diapers to the shop for them to do it themselves, but they declined. Blake (and presumably Dwayne) wanted Clark there....just not his diapers. Boy did Clark come home greasy from there!!
Gotta run....and maybe get some sleep. (What's that???)
~Colleen
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