I knew better

When a day starts off with the crankies, I should just learn to say "Fine, we'll cancel our plans and stay inside." But then I start to think... they'll just fight with each other from boredom... it will be much more stressful... and I convince myself that going out is the better idea.

But then no one wants to get dressed. No one is listening to instructions. We're running late. An unexpected errand needs to occur first before the outing agenda, and everything is just chaos. And I'm a stubborn taurus, I don't want to be the person that calls and cancels, so we press on! And we head out the door....

To get stuck in traffic. Detours. Record high temperatures in a black car. Forgot our sack lunches. And I didn't pee before we left the house. What kind of mother am I?

The planned outing to the Farmer's Market had nothing of consequence today, didn't really benefit much, other than seeing a friend, that doesn't get to happen very often. And we decide to go to a public place to get out of the heat. But it's Max's naptime. Hmmm, he's a flexible kid, it will be ok.

Not ok. He has also discovered scowling, and yelling, and arching his back. And he whipped out his full artillary today. But I don't want to cancel on Maren and Kellan again because of it, so I tried to whip out my artillary of distractions... crap, forgot most of that at home too.

So I begin to think it was an utterly disasterous mistake, I'll go tell Kellan and Maren to get their shoes on and lets go home. Oh no, what's this? Another mother is scolding my child... seriously? Because a lot of mothers tend to think their child can do no wrong, I don't like confrontation so I tend to assume my child did ALL the wrong to avoid it.

I asked "Were they playing too rough? What's going on?" (As I intrude more to give her the hint that she shouldn't be scolding my child with her finger and in his face like she was....) And she says "He kept putting his hand on my child, I watched him do it like 5 times."

Ah, ok. That's usually Kellan. He's a good kid, but he loves TOO much. But what she didn't do was ask HER child what THEY BOTH were playing, and she also didn't encourage her child to work it out for himself. I don't go scold other people's kids in public when they are mean, I encourage my kids to work it out or play away from that kid. If it persists, I usually go ask the snot nosed brat "Where's your mom?" She's usually the one in the corner with the superiority complex unaware that her child is being...a child.

It's a good friend who will sit there with you through a mess like that, still try to press on with you, even though I should have just said "I'm so sorry, we've got to go." But... we'll see if this friend ever invites us out to play again ;^)

I've learned my lesson! Max can't be flexible anymore. He's almost two..... ugh.