This. just. happened.

Yesterday I had to run to Wal-Mart to get a few things and my worst nightmare could not have prepared me for the experience I was about to encounter. Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but only a little.

Things were going as close to smooth as possible until I needed deli meat. It was our last stop before the checkout line and anyone with a small child knows that when you are in public your child is like a timer- the closer you get to the end of the trip the worse their behavior gets. Brooke had held herself together the whole time but now she was ready to get out of the cart and eat something. As I walked up to the counter, a pregnant woman and her husband sidled in beside me. I looked the other direction for about a millisecond and when I turned back to give my order they had somehow gotten the worker to wait on them first. It was irritating, but I brushed it off and told myself that maybe she was having a massive pregnancy craving and needed some deli meat ASAP. Ten minutes later when she was still deciding which meat she wanted by “sampling” each and every kind, I had lost most of my compassion. Meanwhile, Brooke had also lost her patience. As we waited in line while the couple ordered one lb. of three different types of meat, Brooke’s wines turned to shrieking which then turned to blood curdling screams. She dumped her cheerios on the ground and as I was crouched down, sweeping them off the oh-so sanitary Wal-Mart floor and into my purse, she began hitting me on the top of the head. All the psychology classes I have had in my lifetime cannot help when my child is having a fit at the grocery store. At this point I began to sweat. I don’t know if it was from the physical work of repeatedly picking up cheerios and things that were getting thrown out of the cart, or because my body was signaling a distress message to my brain. “Help! We’re under attack!”

About five hours later (or thirty minutes…really the same difference when you have a toddler with you), the couple finished getting their meat. I wanted so badly to inform the meat swindling pregnant lady that SHE would soon be the woman in Wal-Mart with a screaming child, but instead I just smiled politely and asked for my half lb of turkey. Brooke continued her tantrum all the way out to the car. As I was bent over and struggling to get this squirming, rage filled child into her car seat, a gust of wind caught my lose fitting shirt and actually blew it up, exposing my midriff plus some. My hands were tied up trying to strap in the wild child so it was a good thirty seconds before I could free them and pull my shirt down. Some fourteen year old kid made a cat call and I almost lost it. At that point I may have mumbled a choice word, and then I asked God if He was serious. Of course, He was. He was seriously trying to teach me patience…and I seriously needed the lesson. After arriving at home without somehow losing my mind, I vowed to never take Brooke grocery shopping again. However, I’m sure that in about two days we will run out of something and the whole cycle will replay in some fashion. Welcome to the world of being a mom.