I'm at
Wal-mart tonight purchasing gifts for the
family we adopted for Christmas. It's fairly late, got all 4 kids right from swimming lessons, and they're pretty tired. The gifts are due tomorrow, so we've got to do this and I want all of them to have the experience.
I'm a little cranky and short on patience as well - especially after every one of them had to use the bathroom - on separate occasions! I'm thinking they are too loud, too much in people's way, too whiny, etc.
So I'm searching for a specific
Oil of Olay product and I tell the kids they can each pick out a
Chapstick for themselves (which was a big deal, because they knew going in there was to be nothing bought for them). I leave them in a row and go a couple rows down. There's a Wal-mart associate re-stocking shelves around the area who occasionally glances at the kids. I think, "Oh, sure, she probably thinks they are going to steal something."
I come back Oil of Olay in hand, they've picked out their
Lip Smackers and we head to another department.
Later as the kids were putting coins in the coin-drop deal where they swirl around and around, the same associate is apparently done with her shift and heading home. She stops me. "Oh, great" I think, "she wants to check their pockets or something."
She tells me how well-behaved and well-mannered my children are. That I should be so proud of them, that she rarely sees children so well-behaved in the store, especially in groups of 4! She said they were chatting amongst themselves about the various Chapsticks, looking at costs, flavors, and multi-packs. They would take an item off the shelf or hanger, look at it, then neatly put it back. She said Corey was even re-arranging the ones he found that were not in the correct place!
Guess as parents we forget our children are children and aren't perfect. I know my kids are good, but I always want them to be a little bit better. Guess I should lighten up a bit - in other's eyes they aren't so bad after all...
