I think I have a sign on my back that says, "Criticize my parenting, come on, you know you wanna!" Only strangers and My MIL can see it, but it's there. Yesterday I embarked on that twice monthly self inflicted torture that is Costco. Since it's summer and school is out I had the pleasure of taking all three kids.
Before we left the car I of course checked on potty and diaper status. The two older assured me they were fine. "Already changed mamma" my daughter said. I loaded the three of them into a shopping cart (no easy feat) and maneuvered it into the store. We were there for 15 minutes, cart already starting to fill up when, "Momma, I POOOOOOOOPED" "Did you really or did you just pee?" I asked hopefully.
30 seconds later I'm tearing through the packed warehouse with a child who is suddenly frantic about the state of her derriere. I park the cart, beg my 5 year old not to move while pulling the baby and her car seat out. Then I pull out the 2 year old and that thing you stick in the cart to keep them from biting it and haul all of this to the bathroom. I don't know if you've done this before but it's no simple task. All those kids and equipment are easily 100 pounds worth and they are squirmy and don't listen. We make it through and even get back to our cart before someone has removed it and somehow manage to finish filling the cart without incident.
I manage to get us in what appears to be the shortest line and have that arrogant "Whew this wasn't so bad" thought. "HEY LADY!" I hear, "Did you know your baby's eating paper?!?" Sure enough there is my 5 month old scarfing down my shopping list. "HEY!" hollers my helper again, "I think she's choking on it!" *Sigh* I manage to get the paper out of her mouth which is now turquoise care of the washable magic marker I snatched from my son to make the list with.
Who does this? I mean really, who thinks it's A-OK to scream, "Hey LADY!" at the obviously frazzled mother of 3? Does she think she's Jerry Lewis? Does she think she's actually being helpful? What is it that makes people feel as if it's acceptable to speak to me that way, to speak to anyone that way?
