Welcome to Not Me! Monday!
This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
There is nothing quite so humbling as being the parent of the nearly-three-year-old having a melt-down in Aisle 10 at the Walmart, is there?
Or so I’ve been told.
Because my child certainly wasn’t the one that burst into tears and kept sobbing loudly that she really really really really really needed a piece of cheese RIGHT NOW, MUMMY! while her mother hissed at her to “be quiet!” And even if it was my kid, I wasn’t the mother that saw everyone looking at her in disdain, silently grading her as a parent, and barely beat down the urge to yell “Oh, like you’ve NEVER been here, right????” I’m not someone with urges to yell at people in public and have a meltdown myself to rival a nearly-three-year-olds. Just because people are looking at me funny.
I’ve so conquered any people pleasing tendencies in myself that it doesn’t bother me at all, actually. I could care less what the strangers at the Walmart think about me and my brood. I don’t burn with humiliation when it’s my turn to be That Mother at the Grocery Store with That Child.
I did not buy string cheese at the grocery store. For myself. That stuff will kill you.
Then I didn’t suddenly long for a grey cubicle at a credit union because going back to work suddenly seemed so much easier.
I am certainly not sitting here, blogging and reading and eating string cheese (that stuff will kill you), while the entire kitchen stares me down. The Kitchen That Looks Like a Grilled Cheese Bomb went off doesn’t ever exist in my house.
And for that matter, all of my laundry is done.
And my washrooms are clean.
It’s not my son that eats in a high chair covered in duct tape to keep all the stuffing in the chair and OUT of his mouth.
It’s not my son that would evidently prefer to eat stuffing from the high chair rather than the delicious, organic, homemade, pureed with love baby food that his long-suffering mother makes for him.
It’s not my daughter that likes to wear my knee-high black boots in nothing but her underwear and a lifejacket. And a fire helmet.
I was not the mother that sent her daughter off to the hair dressers with just her Dad. You’d like to think that telling him “Just get them to trim up her ends and bangs while you’re there” is enough. Because everyone knows Daddys ought not be in charge of policing young hairdressers. And your daughter certainly didn’t come home with a little boy’s hair, including layers – SHORT LAYERS – of her baby fine blonde hair that takes forever to grow.
That poor woman. Hope her daughter likes baretttes.
