741 'USE YOUR WORDS' WORKS FOR ALL AGES :)

It's common for observers to stand in judgment of another's parenting skills when a terrible, horrible, very bad day is culminating in plain sight.  One day when that happened to me, instead of bowing my head and walking through the hall of parental shame, I chose to stand up for myself in a self respecting way when an observer in a dentist's waiting room sat across from me, casting disparaging looks at my children's public display of 'misbehavior'. 

On this particular day, which my trio had off from school, I made the mistake of grocery shopping with all three in tow right before each had doctor AND dentist appointments, lined up, one after another—Crazy, right?   Not exactly one of my prudent, three step plans ...

Upon reflection, it's common for working parents to unwittingly schedule craziness into our hurry-up-and-wait lives :) 

So after setting boxes of sugared cereal back on shelves and nixing the candy aisle and separating arms from flailing out at each other, and stopping insults from zinging back and forth while standing in the check out line, followed by grabbing a bite, before sitting on pins and needles in the pediatrician's waiting room, where three little monkey faces leaped from chairs and climbed the walls ... child #3 was finally ensconced in the dentist chair and the older two were close to hanging from the waiting room ceiling fan when an on looker began to shoot The Child Whisperer—who was staving off a mental breakdown—dirty looks, as if to say—if you can't control your children, don't take them out in public. 

In hopes of not leaping up and shaking these children I loved more than life—in hopes of not losing it and blackening a pair of eyes belonging to a stranger whose judgmental attitude I'd deemed in need of change, this certified family communication's instructor held tight to the line of control while these words floated gracefully out of  my well trained mouth:  It's best not to judge a mother and her children without knowing what they've had to contend with before you walked into this waiting room.  And with those magic words, this onlooker's frowning attitude buried its head in a magazine while my well trained think tank, relieved of hours of pent up stress, relaxed, even though the antics of my sons continued to resemble an uncaged zoo, swinging from trees until we got home, where instinctively all three piled out of the car, flew straight through the house and into the back yard, seeking asylum on their jungle gym (aptly named), which provided a perfect place to release energy, pent up throughout this horrible, terrible, poorly planned day.  And when I glanced out of our kitchen window and watched my three little guys wrestling and hanging upside down on our jungle gym, my smile shone with sheer contentment for this reason:  There was no doubt that at the very last minute, when melt down threatened, I'd been able to depend upon every self controlled, attitude-altering lesson that adults need to role model if we want our children to learn to do the same, suggesting that before we can expect our kids to calm down their attitudes of irritability by taking an immediate time out on the spot, so they can 'use their words' to express how they feel ... well, my mind felt at peace knowing that after this working mother had spent an afternoon in hell, which I'd been crazy to have consciously planned, i'd followed my own advice and allowed words to work wonders at saving me from experiencing an adult melt down in public :)  And you can believe me when I say that ... in the future ... I never planned three appointments at more than one doctor's office on a free day, again. :)