Thursday, August 9, 2007

Delightful Children

This morning, I stopped at Panera for a bit of a snack after dropping Elise off at preschool. This is not my usual thing, but I was famished (in spite of breakfast at home) so there I was.

I chose a table right next to this lovely mom and her three incredibly handsome little boys, the youngest of whom was about Elise's age. The four of them made a delightful tableau. And as I eavesdropped on their civilized conversation, I began to hate them. Especially the mom. How in the world does she get to have the perfect little family? I'm jealous!

And then I looked over at the table. The 4-year-old was crawling around under the table, while the oldest was wearing his flip-flops on his hands and tapping them on his own rosy little cheeks. I couldn't see what the third was doing, but his feet were on the wall of the booth and his food wasn't really eaten. As I finished my snack, I could hear the screaming all the way to and from the bathroom and some sort of statement about "You're having some issues today. Let's see if you can pull it together."

So I smiled and quietly reminded myself that I'm not the only one who has "days." And then I felt really sorry for the beautiful lady as she tried to herd her hoarde out of the restaurant with some level of decorum.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And thus the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" -- they left off the part about "this time" --

I think parents are far more understanding of other parents trying to deal with their kids' "issues" in public -- because we know that tomorrow, dude, it could be us.

Sunshine

cacophonyx said...

See, I get a perverse pleasure out of letting my little'uns a little slack when we're out and about, because I *know* they'll make a nuisance of themselves with more creativity than most little tykes out there.

Kids... they're there for parents' entertainment. Right?:D