This is for every harried parent of a small child, trying to survive the last-minute shopping thing:
I had four kids in just under six years, and I well remember what it was like when I had to drag them all out to some mundane thing such as grocery shopping or trying to keep them on their best behavior in, say, an interminable DMV line before online anything existed. Christmas shopping! I remember how quick other adults were to scowl at them and me. How much it meant to me when someone smiled: often, it would be a middle-aged woman, remembering the days. An actual compliment from a stranger could carry me for weeks.
That 40-something (I still get to say that) woman is me now. There are perks to this motherhood thing. I was in a big box retailer one time a few years ago, and coming out of checkout, there was a bench for customers and a young dad sitting on it.
He was holding his little girl with long black curls, who was maybe 16 months old? Old enough to walk, too young to really talk but old enough to understand enough to surprise her parents from time to time. Mine did.
She was at that stage of exhaustion where some kids get to, of flailing in a no-holds-barred screaming tantrum, arching her back hard to try to throw herself on the ground, knowing her daddy wouldn’t let her fall anyway and heedless of any consequences. She wanted her mommy and she wanted to go home and she wanted dinner and she wanted bed and she wanted it NOW.
Somehow, as I approached them, I managed to make eye contact with her. Focusing on her, totally ignoring her father. I think that part was crucial to what happened next–she noticed. Still, this was unusual: just like adults, when little ones are upset, they don’t want to look you in the eye. But something caught hers and she saw me as I slowed down, thinking, what an adorable child! I stopped just far enough away not to be too close, and affirmed happily to her, as if I’d just run into an old friend, “Yeah. I’ve had days like that.”
She stopped immediately. She looked at me, suddenly silent, eyes wide. I was smiling back. She eased down in slow motion into her daddy’s lap, put her thumb slowly up to her mouth, and looked up quite shyly at me but with a little smile now too. She was SO cute. My own smile got bigger.
And then it was her daddy’s turn; just before I left I gave him a quick glance, a smile and a nod. He was looking up at me, too, by then, with this, “Oh thank you. THANK you!” in his face. His daughter watched me leave the store, waving bye-bye just before I stepped outside out of their sight.
The whole scene took so few seconds out of my busy day to let happen. But I will never forget those two. They brought out the best in me, and I am grateful.