Eat Your Words

Isn't it so rewarding to prove someone wrong after they have said something not-so-nice about you. Perhaps you overheard so-and-so mention your less than stellar housekeeping skills, and then the next time they visit your house happens to be in impeccable order. Those are always good days.

Monday was not one of those days. Someone recently asked me what the biggest challenge has been with adding a 3rd child. My answer was immediate and definite - going out. It is a juggling act to get myself and 3 kids ready, into the car, with everything we need for the outing, into the store, around the store, through the check-out, and then back home. And since Xander is only 3 months old, I am still in the trial and error stage.

Oh the choices - keep Xander in that awful infant seat, only to have something else to drag around after he has woken up and is crying because he hates the thing. Or put him in the sling, knowing that at some point I will probably have to carry a kicking and screaming Naomi because I didn't let her run wild (as her heart so desires.)

I know now that the first time to a new place should be thought of as "training" and I shouldn't go with the expectation of actually accomplishing what you would expect to accomplish at said place. But knowing this and doing this are 2 different things. We took a trip to the library on Monday. We have gone often enough that the girls now know what is expected of them. However, we hadn't been in a few weeks - just enough time for them to forget. To top it off, I had forgotten the sling, which means I was down an arm at all times.

It all started out decent enough. I held Xander as my 2 darling daughters held each others hands and walked gracefully into the library. On our way in an older woman looked at me and said, "How sweet, we could all learn a thing or 2 from you." I told her she may want to reserve her praise until the end of the trip. And boy was I right. I spent the entire time chasing Naomi, putting her into time-out, telling Annalia to stay in the kid's section and not follow me as I stop Naomi from pulling every book off the shelves. I don't think we were in the building for more than 5 minutes before I decided we needed to leave. Of course, that meant dragging a very resistant Naomi through the checkout line (where of course I had fines to pay, because it was just that sort of day) and out the door.

I don't know if that nice lady was still in the building, witnessing my desperate attempt to discipline a 2 year old in public, but I am sure she was ready to eat her words.