Parenting FAIL Friday: The crazy grocery store mom.

I love my kids so much it hurts sometimes. So much that I have to, without fail, do one final bedtime check before I go to sleep every night to make sure they’re sleeping soundly, warm but not too warm, and not on the verge of rolling off the edge of the bed. It happens.

I feel that I need to clarify this sometimes, just so everyone knows that my kids don’t always make me insane. A lot of times, they make me want to explode in a massive cloud of love and kisses.

That being said, I need to explain why you may be seeing my face on the 11 o’clock news.

I had to take the girls grocery shopping the other day. Generally not a big deal, because we’ve really been working on out-in-public manners. (Read: pep talks involving phrases like, “no screaming banshees” and “running like you’re being chased by a rabid animal,” and, “don’t touch anything. Ever.”)

We (or really, I) had a really rough week with Goo. One of the local grocery stores has a supervised kids’ play area: all glass, middle of the store so you can always peek in on your babies, show I.D. to drop off and pick up, escape from shopping with a pack of rabid dogs. The girls love it because it has Barbies and coloring stuff. Just like home. Where they complain about not having things to do. Anyway.

Ordinarily, given poor behavior, I wouldn’t let Goo play there because it’s kind of a treat for her. But either she was going to play while I picked up a few things, or one of us wasn’t making it out of there alive. Probably me.

She played, I grabbed a few things, checked out, and headed over to pick it up. And it started:

“You’re done?!? You’re already done?!? Thanks a lot! I didn’t even get to play!” And so on.

I picked her up, put her in the cart, and right up next to her ear, in my most serious I’m-the-boss-of-you voice, told her to sit down and stop yelling or there would be a time out at home. And yes, I actually do post-shopping time outs if needed. Even if there’s a car ride in between.

She looked at me, folded her arms, and refused.

I warned her to sit down, or she could fall when I moved the cart.

More yelling. Stomping. Outright defiance. I was mortified. Mortified. To the point where I said screw it and just wanted to run out of the store with my tail between my legs. So I did. I started leaving the store.

And then it happened – Goo fell forward. And bonked her nose on the carriage. In front of the other shoppers. Who then heard her preposterous performance:

“You did that! You pushed me on purpose! Look what you did! You hurted my nose! Why did you do that?” Complete with drama club tears and all.

I would have taken a picture for this post except that there was no mark on her nose. It wasn’t even red. But I suddenly panicked when I realized that stores have security cameras. And when the security video is leaked to the news stations, it’s totally gonna look like I tried to make her fall. She’s convincing. And then I’ll be “that woman” that everyone saw on the news.

I held her face, assured her that there were no boo-boos, tried to calm her down, and got her in the car. Trying to make the horrified passersby realize that I actually love her to pieces and would never, ever hurt her.

And then I promptly reminded her that there would most definitively be a time-out of colossal proportions when we got home. Channel 8 news or not, there’s no way you’re getting away with that mess.