For Me?

This morning after taking care of my five dogs (yes, five dogs, we have one foster) and after walking the two dogs I walk three times per day at the senior center, I headed to Mariano’s with my children that all have a serious case of spring fever. Let’s just say they were on their best ‘hyper children that are getting ready for a BBQ’ behavior.

We walked through the store and with each aisle came a new issue, the girls started bickering and that escalated into a bit of a rumble in aisle 5, by aisle 6, one of them dropped their pop and it exploded all over the store.

Anyway, I was being judged left and right; there was an eye roller in aisle 8 and a young judgmental mom in aisle 11; in all fairness, let’s not forget the mom with the college kids that quickly had a moment reminiscing about when her kids were grade school age and the amazing senior that smiled warmly at their youthfulness. In the meantime, I was flustered, annoyed and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

Finally at the checkout, I happen to run into my best friend and her family and did the suburban chat over the candy filled line dividers and that’s when it happened…the point of this post!

A lady tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘excuse me ma’am, I just want to tell you that…’ (my heart was in my throat, what did the little sweeties do now, oh my….here it is, I look away for 2 minutes and I have someone alerting me of bad behavior) '…you are doing a great job!’ I was completely taken back by the compliment and my quick scan around the perimeter of the store for one of my joker friends or sister came up negative. When my eyes came back into focus, there she was, this mom holding yellow flowers telling me that she got these for me.

I immediately thought of the blog post last month regarding the mom that received flowers from another mom when her child was having a tantrum. The kids asked why the lady handed me flowers and I told them about the blog post I read last month and explained that they were being a tad bit obnoxious in the store and I am sure I was a tad by frazzled and sometimes as a parent, you just have to hear that you are doing an okay job, even from a stranger that happens to have the same job duties as you.

When we were walking out of the store, my daughter asked if I was going to buy another mom flowers too. There it is folks, kindness being passed along and my little dumplings witnessed it firsthand.

Thank you random stranger mom!!!