All day I have wondered what made a complete stranger utter these words to me while on shopping with my family in tow.
Bryan and I split up once we hit the store so we could be done before any mayhem broke out. I was lucky enough to be stuck, I mean paired, with Justin. While we were strolling down aisle number 3 of our shopping adventure Justin decided he'd had enough of acting like a normal child. Justin has discovered his super hero power of elastic super stretch arms. Lately when we go to the store (or anywhere for that matter), he reaches out and just grabs whatever he feels like and tries to knock or pull it off the shelf, rack, whatever it's on. So now I have to walk perfectly down the middle of aisles so he doesn't knock everything down.
"Cookie mommy, cracker mommy, snack mommy."
"No Justin, we have all of this at home. Please stop touching." As I'm swatting his arm away to keep him from knocking an entire jar of salsa onto the floor, I hear:
"Don't worry, it'll get better." I glance to my left and there is a very nice woman looking at me with a smile that says: "Oh have I been there."
I told her, "I sure hope so, I'm seriously debating keeping him locked in the house until he's 18." She laughed and gave me one more sympathetic smile and that was that.
Afterward I wondered what brought on these words from this complete stranger. What she'd witnessed Justin doing isn't nearly as bad as the majority of crap he's been doing lately. Perhaps my face said it all. Have I finally turned into a broken mom and all my frustrations were right there on my face for all to see? Whatever prompted it, I just hope she's right!
