I hear this all the time. From the lady shopping in the same aisle at the grocery store, from the guy behind the counter at Starbucks. It’s like the mommy-equivalent of “oh, you got your hair cut!”. Or, “you look tired”.
Seriously? Of course I’ve got my hands full. Thanks for noticing. I’ve got three kids. Only one of them can adequately speak for himself, and doesn’t need his bottom wiped every two hours.
Once, after dropping my oldest son off at preschool, my two-year old, the baby and I hit Target. We weren’t 10 steps in the door when I got hit with this:
“Oh, you only have two today?”
Seriously? Do I know you? The comment came from a twenty-something wearing a name tag and a red shirt. I didn’t know her. Didn’t even recognize her. My first thought was UH-OH. Her comment meant one of two things:
1) I shop at Target WAY too much . . . OR
2) We are WAY too memorable when we do go
I think I have a pretty good handle on my kids (most of the time). Especially the little ones. My 5-year-old can be a little much, but that’s for another post (can you say high-maintenance?). So, I don’t think it’s that people remember us because we’re throwing tantrums over Lego’s (although there was that one December trip where we broke a snow-globe, but that was a total accident and it was over 2 years ago . . .).
So, this makes me wonder. . . Do you ever get the “busy lady” or “hands full” comments? Can’t people come up with something more interesting or helpful to say? How about, “your children are beautiful”, or “here, let me get that for you”. THAT would be a welcome change. Or, maybe I should just be happy they aren’t shooting us dirty looks . . .
grumpysleepyandbashful 