Pictured: The babes that keep me on my toes (OK, on my tippy toes!), but full of love.
Story Overview:
Last Monday was, as the saying goes, the “Mondayest of Mondays that ever Mondayed.” I woke up with two sick kids, no sub for my eighth graders, and a lack of sleep like you wouldn’t believe. In this edition of She Likes to Write, I am thankful for:
1. School secretaries and classroom teachers who shuffle at the last minute to get classes covered for a bunch of restless eighth graders
2. Family who steps in last minute to help with the kids
3. Random dudes at CVS who shout words of encouragement to me down the diaper aisle
Story
“Stay strong!” Shouted the random stranger at CVS as he watched me chase my four and one year old around the stuffed animal bin, while waiting for their three prescriptions to fill.
Did this dude just tell me to, "Stay strong?" I had thought. I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry.
Clearly, this man thought I was on the struggle bus that day.
And truth be told, I was.
About two minutes prior to this, he had yelled down the diaper aisle to my kids, “Be nice to your Mommy!” I hadn’t heard him the first time so I had to shout back, “Excuse me?” To which he had replied, “I told your kids to be nice to you!”
Um OK, thanks, random dude at CVS. I’m sure they will take your words to heart. My four-year old looked at him with a blank stare and my one-year old didn’t hear a word of it. Both kids continued to run and laugh as they blasted down each aisle, delighted by the colorful sights and sounds of CVS.
“Thank you!” I shouted back as I turned a sharp corner to once again, grab my one year old who was about to knock down an entire row of shampoo with one fell swoop.
What else was I going to say?
He smiled and nodded, seemingly proud of himself.
“Weirdo,” I had originally thought.
Not gonna lie: It had been the Mondayest of Mondays I’ve had in a long time. Both kids woke up with croup. My younger one’s eyes were so crusted over she couldn’t open them. I knew I wouldn’t have time to get a sub for my classes last minute and my husband couldn’t take off work. My mother- in- law rushed down to our house to help. I rushed to school and worked on making sub plans for the afternoon, while simultaneously teaching in the morning, as the school secretary worked to get me afternoon sub coverage so I could take both girls to the doctor. I rushed out of school at 11:00 to go get both kids and take them in.
Oh, did I mention that I had only slept for about two hours the night before, from roughly 4:00-6:00 a.m.? Not that I'm new to this sleep deprivation thing, being a parent, but couple that with a little bit of illness and a lot of stress, and you've got a recipe for one hot mess of a mother.
I was feelin’ all sorts of half awake/half asleep/half about to cry, and clearly, (per: random dude at CVS), it showed.
Back to the story: I don't think my kids weren’t being unkind per se, depending on your definition of unkind of course.
Wild animals? Yes. Unkind? Jury’s out.
They were for sure having a heyday at CVS, no deliberating there. This included: chasing one another down the aisles like wild dogs on the loose, shaking bottles of vitamins like they were maracas, and giving one another leg massages with battery-operated massagers they found in the medicine aisle (They’re actually pretty nice if you ever get a chance to try one out). All of these antics were obviously coupled with lots of loud, obnoxious small child laughter, which is probably what alerted the shopper to give me some words of wisdom in the first place.
The over-thinker that I am, I kept trying to figure out this man's intentions. Being a female, I often get creeped out by random adult males trying to talk to me out of nowhere in public. I’m even more on guard when my kids are with me.
So, was he just a total weirdo like I initially thought? Or was he a genuinely kind man trying to be helpful?
Upon further reflection and, for the sake of my sanity, I have decided to go with the second theory. The fact of the matter is, I did need some extra positivity that day, and pretty badly. It surprised me a little bit that it would come from a stranger at CVS, but sometimes, the universe speaks to us in unexpected ways.
It is currently 1:21 in the morning as I write this, and I am rocking my one-and-a-half year old in the midst of her coughing spells, trying to work out in my mind, how many hours of sleep I can get before alarms go off in the morning. I am thinking about facing my batch of eighth graders who, now that it is almost May, are done and let this be known to every adult in the building. And I am thinking about this guy at CVS who took a quick minute out of his day to essentially tell me to keep my head up and press on, croup, eye infections, lack of sleep and all.
So dear random person at CVS who gave me some words of encouragement when I needed it the most: thank you. It actually feels nice to know that even strangers are there for you just when you’re about to collapse from stress. This person saw something in me that needed to hear these words that day and clearly, it worked, as I’m still thinking about it right now.
And to anyone else out there dealing with an excessive lack of sleep, or a load of stress on your shoulders that sometimes seems unbearable on the toughest of days, stay strong, my friend.
Someone may be looking out for you, whether you know it or not.