Children Can Make One Question Their Character.

So this topic has been hovering in my brain waves for a couple days but every time I seem to sit and write about it the subject morphs into something different and I end up completely off.  I’ve decided today that I’m going to attempt to stay on point.

Little children have a way of making people do things out of their character.  It’s like the saying I’ve been seeing floating around Facebook recently that goes somewhat along the lines of “Doesn’t matter how tough you are when a 2 year old hands you a pretend phone you answer it.”  The first time I saw this I laughed because it was true.  It then started popping up several times a week on my Facebook page and it got to be one of those redundant once-funny lines that has been read so many times it has lost it’s humor.  Even though it doesn’t seem quite as amusing it has undergone a metamorphosis of sorts in terms of meaning to me.

A really good example is an incident that occurred very recently…thus why I’ve been prompted to address this topic.  I went on a shopping trip with my rowdy children and one-who-shall-not-be-named for legal purposes.   The reason for the trip was a monthly stock-up run at a large warehouse department store.  My children were being a special brand of “crazy bad” for the past 24 hours and looked as though this day was not going to be any better.  Actually to be quite fair it was mainly my daughter. My son was just being typical brand of “kid bad” that day.  Upon arrival to the store one-who-shall-not-be-named and I got a cart each and took one child each to split them up.  When giving one-who-shall-not-be-named the choice of which child they would like for the duration they immediately opted for the less of the two evils that day, my son.

The trip of course coincided with nap time.  We had planned well to feed the children prior to entering the store but unfortunately there is only a small window between lunch and nap.  Once in the store I spent most of my time begging my daughter to behave herself and threating to ground her for life if she didn’t settle down.  More than once I said to one-who-shall-not-be-named and loud enough for the patron that was shopping nearby “Good choice on which kid you picked today.”  All was well until about ¾ ways through the trip when my son started getting the pre-nap whine on.  He began to get fussy but with that heavy lidded, head nod happening.  One-who-shall-not-be-named was first walking around with their hand under his head trying to provide some support so that he could have a nap.  Between navigating the cart and my son starting to increase the fuss level to an actual cry one-who-shall-not-be-named took of their jacket and put it under my son’s head in order to encourage slumber.  It wasn’t enough; the cry was beginning to escalate into a probable scene.  I then offered my jacket, which if you read my last article and for those who know me, is a HUGE sacrifice on my part because I’m always cold.  It still wasn’t enough; we were coming close to a possible melt down.  Then one-who-shall-not-be-named grabbed a large soft housecoat from the clothing section close-by and placed it on top of the all the jackets already existing under his head. My son is insane about his SOFT blankets and without something microfiber soft he is almost impossible to convince to sleep without.  Now that all his sleeping criteria were met he immediately dozed off and was silent. 

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Flash forward about half an hour and several threats to my daughter later and we have just left the store.  We are in the parking lot; it’s really, really cold (especially as we are both jacketless) and we are trying to get the vehicle loaded with our wares.  Upon getting my son out of the car seat one-who-shall-not-be-named realizes that we have inadvertently not paid for said housecoat.  By this time we’re both exhausted, my son is screaming bloody murder due to being woken up early and upon removal of his soft “blanket.”  One-who-shall-not-be-named did something completely and utterly out of character, put the soft housecoat back on my son (who immediately said “Bank, you” and fell back asleep) and said “Whatever let’s just go.”  We are now fugitives from the law. 

My 2 year old son was capable of forcing me to be an accessory to a crime.  If that is not out of my character or one-who-shall-not-be-named’s character than I don’t what is.  Anyhow the mental anguish subsided pretty fast, due partly to the fact that my son stopped that ear-piercing screaming and even my daughter fell asleep shortly after but also because karma has already paid us back.  We shortly discovered the pilfered housecoat will fit absolutely no one that we know of because it’s both too small for the adults and way too big for the kids.  At least in my conscious I know that if we were going to intentionally steal something than at least we’d ensure it fit first.