Parenting at the Wal-Mart

I knew the title would get you to read it! :)  We have all witnessed, whether in person or on some You-Tube video, a horrific scene of some poor mom loosing it at Wal-Mart and yelling at her child in a fashion she certainly wouldn't be proud of.  If you are a mom you have also, whether we admit it or not, have had at least one experience where our child has just lost it in public and as we desperately try every technique we know (usually in less than 30 seconds which is probably why it never works) to get our child to stop screaming, stop touching, stop doing whatever it is they are doing that make us wonder where this child came from.  Some of us handle these moments with amazing composure and others not.  The ones who don't end up on You-Tube.  I've had an incident when Mel was two where she starting crying at the top of her lungs because I took something away she had grabbed off the shelf.  We were 3/4 of the way done and I soooooo did not want to have to leave the store so I threw the mommy look, the threat, and the super quiet serious voice at her all at once.  It didn't work, but that's a story for another day.  Today I want to share how every now and then  by the grace of God, textbook parenting advice does work.

Last week was a long week.  I had been sick all week long and wouldn't you know, it was the first week of school and Charles worked every night until at least 10:30.  So after taking Melanie to swim practice on Friday I decided we would stop at the Wal-Mart to pick up a few things we needed and head home.  Mel was really tired too.  Melanie was awesome while shopping even when we couldn't find the Pirate Booty snack she wanted to take to the ball game.  She took it all in stride, no big deal, awesome.  So as we headed to the check-out we passed the Goldfish display and they had those little boxes that look like lunch milk cartons and even though we had several bags of Goldfish at home I knew how sometimes packaging is everything, so when she asked if she could have one I said yes and we proceeded to the check-out.

Did I mention Melanie was tired, well, she was.  She decided to sit on the floor while we waited for the person in front of us.  Possibly I could have ignored it but I really cringe when I think of the amount of germs on a store floor at the end of the day, plus she was wearing a skirt, so I made her stand up and explained that the floor was really dirty.  It was now our turn to load items onto the belt so as she started to sit on the floor again I asked her what she was doing and she knew exactly what I was talking about and stood up.  By now there was an older couple in line behind us.  Just as I finished getting everything out of the cart I turn around and you guessed it, Melanie was sitting on the floor just staring up at me.  So without a word I took her Goldfish box off the belt and handed it to her and asked her to put it back on the shelf because we wouldn't be able to get it today.  And this is how it went:

Melanie in the whiniest voice you can imagine," I don't want to put them back."

Me in the calmest voice you can imagine, "I know you don't want to honey but I asked you not to sit on the floor and you made the choice to do exactly what I asked you not to."

Melanie still super whiny, "I don't know where they go."

Me pointing, "Right there."

With tears in her eyes she placed them back on the shelf and looked at me.

I asked her, "Why did Mommy make you put them back?"

Melanie said, "Because I sat on the dirty floor after you asked me not to."

My final comment, "Thank you for putting them back like I asked, I'm sorry you made the choice to sit on the dirty floor when I asked you not to.  I love you.  Now please go and stand at the end of the cart so I can load up and pay and we can go home."  Melanie went exactly where I asked her to go.

The gentleman behind me said, "Well done.  You don't see parenting like that often (I'm pretty sure he meant at the Wal-Mart) and it worked out so well."

Before I could even say thank you, Melanie looked at us from above her glasses and said, "Didn't work out for me!"

It was all we could all do not to laugh. :) 

By the time we got to the car Mel was smiling like always and was over it.  Sometimes we loose it, sometimes we handle it perfectly, and usually it is somewhere in between but mothering is a series of lessons guided by love.