The Tantrum

Every mother knows the terror of taking their child into a store and watching as they have a melt down. I'm talking about the worst melt down you can possibly have. Rolling on the floor melt down, kicking and screaming melt down, snot everywhere melt down. This particular melt down just so happened to us while my husband and I were going to Target this morning.

I'll admit Stan was getting close to his nap time and getting him to put shoes on was a big no no. So my husband reminded him that it was wear shoes or sit in the cart. Stan chose sit in the cart. Fair enough, he'd done it plenty of times before. Never asked to get down after we reminded him that he wasn't able to without shoes on. It was same as usual.

So, when we got into Target and Stanley proceeded to tell us where to drive the cart. We told him that we were going to go where we needed to and get out as fast as possible. I know two year olds don't totally get this logic but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Next he pulled his shirt off. You can guess we were a bit taken aback. He was looking for attention. It was true but we were trying to get in and out as quickly as possible. He took his shirt off and we tried to stop him but instead we ignored it.

Then the real tears started. The high pitch shrill and the snot. Ooooh the snot. Screaming and yelling we pushed the cart passed the on lookers. There were looks of "What the hell" and smiles of "I've been there" but no one said anything. This is what normally happens when Stan gets loud in a store so I thought nothing of it.

Getting to the register the teller swiped the items we had picked up with a bit more speed then one would expect from a 60 year old man. We were yards away from the door when a woman called "Pick him up! That's what he needs! Pick him up for goodness sake!" I turned to the voice, confused. Had someone actually tried to tell me how to deal with a tantrum? Really? Woman, you have some balls! I had to walk away, but my husband shouted "You're wrong, Lady! Totally wrong!" We left the store and I was sure I would explode.

That horrible feeling of anger and sickness swirled in my stomach. At least one of us had said something! Then I realized what I should have said... "You pick him up, Lady! See if he calms down for you!" that would have been an epic ending to a small battle.... But what I wanted to say was "Fuck you, Lady." ... now that would have been the beginning of a rude back and forth. To be honest, every mother needs those back and forths, it gets us ready to fight with our teenagers.