Parenting On The Bread Aisle

I have four children.  I have four wonderful children.  I have four wonderful children under the age of seven.  And I brought these four children to WalMart the other day, to do our grocery shopping for the week.  The working theory for this adventure goes something like this: the two oldest boys keep one hand on either side of the cart, the three-year-old girl sits still in the back of the cart, and the baby coos and giggles from the seat by momma.  We discuss what kind of snacks they want as we take a leisurely stroll down the chip aisle.  We laugh at the hilarious faces the children make at each other as I select a carton of perfect eggs.  Sunlight streams in through the windows.  A unicorn prances by. 

I said “theory”.

What really happens is my oldest walks calmly next to me, one hand on the cart as he was supposed to.  My youngest cries and tries his best to put his hands down my shirt from his buckled perched (because nipples).  My girl wants to hold the eggs.  And my second born son constantly lets go of the cart to TOUCH ALL THE THINGS, tickle all the passing babies, pick up anything shiny (usually glass), ask why people are fat or black or smell funny at the top of his voice, and run through the wide aisles as if he were Julie Andrews running across those musical hills on acid.  I reign him in repeatedly.  I warn him of the dire consequences that await him at home.  I inform him that he will not be receiving his portion of the snack.  I constantly watch him and apologize to annoyed shoppers when he airplane-arms them in the crotch. 

Imagine this guy comin' atcha.

An elderly gentleman passes us, smiles at the cart, points at my wild Jack and nudges me with his elbow: “Consistency is the key.”

*I AM SO CONSISTENT I COULD CURSE, SIR, BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR TWO CENTS* “Yes, I’m trying” I said with a thumbs-up.  “Please excuse my circus.”

That line is good for neutralizing most rubberneckers.  It conveys that I’m at least aware of what’s occurring and that I’m trying to be courteous.  I use it a lot. 

So I push through it.  Twenty-nine items out of thirty.  Close enough.  Time to blow this popsicle stand! 

But then, of course, three of them need to pee.

Did you know that the grocery store is one of the number one places to host a kidnapping?  I did.  But I’ve got a cart full of cold food items on top of my purse and a baby who has, of course, fallen asleep with his face in my hand on the way to the bathroom.  So I park myself as close to the bathroom door as I can without blocking traffic, and I send them in.  I see the twinkle in Jack’s eye as he bounds across the threshold, so I pull him aside and ask him where he’s keeping his self-control today.  In his “BUTT!”, apparently.  I remind him to use it.  He looks me in the eye and says “yes ma’am”.  I cross my fingers so hard one of my knuckles pops. 

And I listen as the baby drools into my hand.  I hear…normal bathroom sounds.  The toilets flush, the sinks turn on, the paper towels rustle…and only two come out.  I smile nervously at a woman who side-steps my children on her way in to the bathroom. 

“Jack!”

No answer.

Then the woman’s face reappears.  “Ma’am,” she says, her lip curled, “Your child is crawling under all the stalls and locking them from the inside.  You need to get him, because people need to use the bathroom.”

So, red-faced and muttering a symphony of apologies so loud I think I actually threw my voice, I woke up the baby, unearthed my purse from the cart, and brought everyone with me to collect my 6-year-old son.

At my command, he slithers under each metal wall and unlocks the doors. 

He walked out the last one laughing.

And I lost it.  I told that kid what was up.  The morning’s frustrations, and the frustrations from the day before, and the week before, and the month before, rolled over me like a thundercloud and I rained down on him hard.  There in the urine-soaked Walmart bathroom, with the baby scream-crying his interrupted nap and the three-year old trying to pull the eggs out of the cart while my attention was on Jack, I lost my momchill.  He got it all.

And then, to my horror, the door to the handicapped stall opened.  Out sauntered a lady in her fifties, with wispy salt-and-pepper hair, a slouchy knit bag over shoulder and a simpering smile that could put Professor Umbridge to shame.  She washed her hands, smiling at my kids sympathetically in the mirror.  She toweled them dry and waved to the baby as if he wasn’t screaming his head off.  I calmed my breathing as best I could and, like I do in serious/dark/all situations, made a joke.

“Please excuse my circus.”

“Honey….”  She smiled and put her damp, wrinkled hand on mine.  “Children are a blessing.  I never had children.  We tried for years, but I never could,” she said.  “Enjoy them, mama.”

And she was gone.

I didn’t say a word to anyone from there to the checkout to the car.  By the time we rolled into our driveway the only one not screaming was the oldest, who bolted out of the van faster than an acme rocket launching Wile E. Coyote across the Grand Canyon. 

I know that children are a blessing.  I wouldn’t have had four if I didn’t believe that.  But, like every good/great/wonderful thing I know of, children are also extremely difficult.  You don’t write a book without gut-wrenching, exhausting struggle.  You don’t rise up in a company without back-breaking labor. You don’t build a strong marriage without tough talks. 

I refuse to ignore the fact that parenting is hard.

I know that children are a blessing.  I wouldn’t stay consistent with discipline or count to three in my head forty-five thousand times a day to hold in my first reaction to a screaming fit if I didn’t know that.  I know you can't see it at Walmart, but besides being disobedient and unruly and stubborn as can be, my Jack is also the sweetest, most joyful thing on the planet, and I'm lucky to be his mother, no matter what the walmart looky-loos say.  And he's worth all the trial.  I won't ever think he's not worth it.  

I will never doubt that it’ll be worth it, but I refuse to delude myself into thinking tomorrow will be easy.  

I know children are a blessing.  I do not take our intense fertility lightly.  I thank God daily for our children here and our two angel babies in heaven.  I don’t know why God gives some people children and doesn’t give them to others.  I KNOW I’M BLESSED.  But that knowledge doesn’t make it any less hard in the day-to-day.

I refuse to feel guilty for hating the sucky parts of parenting.  If you’re laughing gaily when your baby’s amoxicillin poops are splattered up to your elbow, you’re certifiable.  If you’re wiping tears of hilarity from your eye when your kid disobeys you for the tenth time in an hour, you need medicine. 

This phase is hard, y’all.  There’s no debating it.  And no amount of simpering, carefree perspective-dropping is going to make it less hard.  “Oh!  They’re a blessing?!?  Well, that changes everything!  I suddenly feel the weight of a thousand concrete blocks lifting from my shoulders!  I’ve been blessed!”  No.

I refuse to feel guilty for knowing I’m in a fight.   

Will this phase be over quickly?  Yes.  But that doesn’t mean this phase isn’t hard as can be.  And it doesn’t mean that I have to enjoy every single second of every single day to be a good parent.

Jack may never learn to reign in his impulses on the bread aisle, but I learned something from Carefree McJudgyPants and every other side-eye-giver and shade-thrower at the supermarket.  I’m done apologizing.  I'm done feeling guilty.  I’m done feeling bad that I’m not elated every time I sit down to write out another shopping list, or send my son to time out for the thirtieth time in a morning.  And I’m especially done apologizing for my circus.  It’s MY circus, not yours.  So you people can take your judgmental glances and shove them.  From now on, I parent for my family only.  Because I knew I’d done everything I could!  I knew that ADHD had just won this one.  I let myself get embarrassed- and it wasn’t about him or his behavior- it was about me.  My worth as a mother was on the line and he was gonna take the heat for it!  Never again.  

I’m a good mom.  I’m a good mom to my four children.  I’m a good mom to my four children because I’m trying my hardest.  And I intend to keep doing just that. 

And I’ll be blessed.