This just happened to me an hour ago in the grocery store.
I was standing in an aisle, deliberating over granola bars while the three small people, all wound up from school and so forth, played one of their “shuffle around in an odd manner and draw as much attention to us as possible†games around the cart. I was tired, and was trying to focus on my purchase so I could get us all out of the store as quickly as possible. A man who looked to be in his early twenties was standing a few feet away from us, deliberating over his own items.
Then, he looked at me and asked, “You do this all the time?†and nodded at the small people.
“Yes,†I laughed, slightly puzzled.
He shook his head. “Amazing,†he mumbled with a faint grin, and walked away.
I wasn’t really sure how to take this, because there wasn’t an ounce of maliciousness in his tone, but there wasn’t a sympathetic “bless your heart†added to the comment either.
As I turned the corner, I walked by a display filled with bottles of Shiraz that were on sale. This I took as an alignment of the stars (tired + obscured meaning comment + wine on sale = aligned stars), so I helped myself to one.
Then, as I headed toward the checkout, I spotted a father probably in his mid-forties, with three kids himself, two that looked to be in upper elementary school or middle school, and one who was a toddler. We had entered the store at the same time, and the toddler had been screaming, quite literally.
This was ten minutes later, and the toddler was still screaming. And you could see, the dad was handling it heroically, but he was weary from battle.
He finished checking out right before me, and I started walking with my cart a few feet behind him, the small people around me talking excitedly about opening up some of the snacks when we got home. Abruptly, he stopped, and turned around, as if he’d forgotten something.
It was the look he gave me. It was brief, but you could tell, he saw me as anything but the frazzled mother, the kids as anything but mischievous children.
I guess it’s all about perspective.
SO good, and SO true! I think when you are weary, and just plain humbled by your children, even the right glance from a knowing soul can mean the world. I’ve been there.
Good reminder to be “the one” to do that for someone else as well. 🙂
Hope you enjoyed the wine. 😉
Monica
Yes, I know I need to work more at being “the one” for someone else, because mostly I’m so focused on managing the kids when I’m in stores that I’m oblivious to others. And, as much as I miss having a really little one around the house, I don’t miss the unreasonable, inconsolable crying stage, so my heart goes out to the poor dad trying to keep it together throughout the store. Still haven’t totally figured out what the first guy meant, but oh well. Can’t wait ‘ til he has kids himself someday. 😉
Actually, by the time I got the kids in bed I was too tired for wine or much of anything. But, I have a feeling that tonight I’ll muster up some hidden fortitude and pour myself some! 😉
So true and I really wondered, as I read this story, if you were going to say that you handed the man with the kids a bottle of wine, too.
Oh my, now I am so wishing that I had thought of that. On a slightly related note, a couple of years ago LCB and I saw a couple get married almost right in front of our house on the beach, and we kept debating about bringing them a bottle of wine afterward. It was just the 2 of them plus the minister and a couple witnesses who all left right after the ceremony, while the couple remained on the beach. We wanted to bring them wine but we weren’t sure if they just wanted privacy, so we left them alone. Later I found out they were friends of our friends, and to this day, it still bugs me that we didn’t just bring them that bottle.
Ha! If that isn’t stars in alignment, then I don’t know what is! I was waiting for you to tell him that the wine was on sale around the corner. I find that when I feel the most frazzled, and my kids are exercising their best “feral children” imitations, some sweet older person comes up and tells me how well behaved my kids are being, or that they had 4 times as many kids and I’m handling it all well. Bless their hearts.