Kate gave me a couple of prompts to choose from, because I
like direction. They were "Wild" and "Keeping Up
Appearances". I started to write this about keeping up appearances, but I
think it's gone wild after all.
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I had to take the kids with me to do the shopping one day
last week, it being the Easter holidays and us having eaten everything in the
house. Now, since my number of children is merely two, and they are giant
things of 6 and almost-9 years at that, you'd think this would be quite a
simple endeavour. And indeed, it's much easier than it used to be; but we
should have gone much earlier in the morning all the same. The older they get,
the harder it is to bodily force them out of pyjamas and into the car, or bribe
them effectively with the idea of a Fun! trip to the supermarket, so here it
was practically lunchtime and we were just starting out. They both devoured a
bagel on the way round (don't worry; I always pay for any consumed bagels) and
spirits were high.
I know from experience that nothing calls attention to rowdy
children more than a parent going mental trying to rein them in, and that it's
usually the parent, not the children, who ends up looking worse to everyone
else. In public, you're actually best off keeping a "ha-ha aren't they
adorable" demeanour even if you actually want to throttle them into
behaving like automatons. So beyond a few well-placed admonishments and
suggestions that they help me find [ginger/red peppers/flour], I tried to
ignore them and just be glad everyone was having fun - though by now the the
fun was veering worryingly towards hopped-up-on-Twinkies levels. We passed a
middle-aged couple on the way down the veg aisle and the man's eyes twinkled as
he said with a smile "You know they're just way too cute, don't you?"
I told him he could have them, but at least they were happy.
I could tell by the over-hyped happy that we were probably
just a few minutes from meltdown. It arrived at the self-checkouts (such hubris
even trying that, but the lines for the cashiers were long) when, after Mabel
got to press the buttons for three vegetables, I let Dash do the bagels. (We
were buying some others, not just weighing the invisible ones.) Sunshine turned
to rain in a flash, as it does with my Mabel, and there was shouting and
insubordination. Luckily, I suggested she sit in the now empty trolley, and she
got in there and hid her face, but continued to yell at us, cruel deniers of
button-pushing joy.
We got out, we got into the car, we went home and had lunch.
What was my point, exactly? Well, it was to tell the story of our
almost-right-up-to-the-end successful trip to the supermarket, but also to
illustrate how trying to keep up appearances (having well-behaved kids in the
supermarket) tends to backfire, until it doesn't, but you're done for anyway
and there's really no graceful exit strategy because children are, to all
intents and purposes, wild beings. We are here to civilise them, but it's a
long and winding road. They're still a work in progress.
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| Chaos, personified |
