The Life of a Circus Clown

I almost forgot to blog tonight, but this is a post I found saved under the drafts, so since it is cold and snowed tonight, plus we had OT till almost 8, it's all I have.....

Sometimes that's how I view my life.

I wouldn't trade these kiddos for anything.  They are so different, and there is always some sort of chaos going on.

Yesterday we went to a book reading on post through the "Tell Me a Story" event.  The parent to parent coalition finds some bigwig to read a book and then they talk about it with the kids.  At the end every family gets a free copy of the book.

It gets us out of the house, and goodness knows my kids love to read.  They had a visiting Zoomobile, a craft, and even discuss the book with the kiddos.

Since they were so well behaved, I surprised them with going out for ice cream.

Everything was still going smoothly, so I decided to check out Ross since I knew Em needed some sweaters for her trip to Japan.  We shopped for a while, and then it came time to try on clothes.

We had two carts--one for Junior and one for Abs, who was reading (and seriously, she just needs to be contained).  While I was trying on clothes, Em asked Abs if she would switch carts with Junior because his cart was so hard to steer.  She agreed, and Em was helping her out of the other cart when it started to tip.  Em got it straightened out and all was well.  I didn't hear anything about it.

Till later.....

After we had tried on clothes and meandered back to one rack to look at a few other things, the lady from the dressing room was hanging up clothes.  She talked to about 6 employees, about what a bad mother "that mother" had been, how she had to step in to "save the little girl", how some people "shouldn't be mothers", and on and on and on.

Okay at this point I don't even know that she is talking about me, but I turn to ask Em if there was an incident with the cart.  She said that there had been a small one, but that some lady overreacted.  During this time, my kids were sitting there quietly, and not being their usual selves.  I asked her to point out the lady and she showed me who it was.

I was fuming.  She was making this huge production for little old me.  Heck, my kids were well behaved at this point, she has no idea what they are capable of sometimes!  So I check out and ask for a manager.  I send Em to the car with the little ones, and I go over to the lady in question to read her name tag.  She asked me what I needed and I just turned and waited for the manager.

I explained the situation to the manager, who was furious.  Maybe it was all an act, but she seemed sincere, and she said she would handle it.  She told me she was the single mother of 4 kids, and no one deserved to be treated like that.

I felt better.  I left.  I hope I never see Cheryl again.

Do you ever find when you are out sometimes that people overreact?  Heck if my kids had been screaming, horsing around, or doing something they shouldn't have been, I would have walked out of the store.  For once, they weren't doing anything wrong.  Sure you can argue that Abbie shouldn't have been in the cart, but if she was reading and being calm and hanging out, what's the harm?  People need to take a second and look at the big picture.