PERSPECTIVE

You ever walk by a toddler or infant in a public place, doing something that made you ask, “Why are his parents letting him/her do that? I certainly wouldn’t let my kid behave that way…” I am sure you have…before you had kids of your own.  If you still ask this question, then you probably don’t have kids of your own yet. See most scenarios that make kidless people ask this question, are simply a matter of perspective.  I completely understood this yesterday as I found myself one of “those” parents….

Marty and I are planning a snowboarding trip to Big White this weekend, so we decided to treat ourselves to new mitts.  Sport Check was having a “buy one, get one half off” sale.  We were pumped! Our own mitts are old and barely qualify as “warm” anymore.  We started the quest with dinner at Sushi Boat. If you’ve been there, you know that it is a very quick place to grab a yummy sushi meal. You can sit right at the counter and watch the boats with individual plates of sushi go floating by. The idea is you just grab the plate that holds the rolls you want, then at the end of the meal, you are charged by the amount and color of plates you have stacked in front of you. Yummmy!  They do have high chairs there but they do not have trays on them and they are too short to actually reach the counter, but Ryder could see the sushi boats going by and this kept his attention…for a while. I had hoped he could try some California rolls or something, but without him being able to reach the table to feed himself, I opted out of trying to actually feed him the rolls, just seemed like it might be too messy, even for us.  Instead, Marty pulled the plates off the boat for he and I to share while,I fed Ryder the yummy chicken, apple, prune puree I had brought. Just for him.  Once done the meat dish, we offered Ryder the finger jello from one of the sushi boats. He was actually freaked out by it, NOT liking the feel of it at all. To keep him busy, so I could eat, I put the squares of jello in front of him, on the counter and let him try to grab them. I knew he was just going to knock each jello square on the floor, but it kept him quiet, happy and entertained just long enough for me to shovel a couple sushi rolls into my own mouth.  I also knew that Marty and I would pick up each piece of jello at the end of this dinner. I also let him grab frozen peas by the mitt full out of the container I had brought them in, knowing that more than half of them would end up on the floor under his chair.  This also may have looked, to the adult with no children,  like a a kid throwing his food on the floor, just to watch him mommy and daddy pick it up, but to Marty and I this looked like 5 minutes of entertainment that allowed us to enjoy the cream puffs from the sushi boat.  We left one very sticky chair and few squished peas at the Sushi Boat, but our bellies were full and our kid was happy. 

Trying on mitts is impossible with a kid in your arms and since we were planning to buy warm, expensivish mitts, trying them on was going to be imperative.  Ryder was wiggling in my arms, eager to get down and finger walk so he could explore.  I glanced around and noticed a low shelf filled with lightweight plastic boxes containing long underwear. My eyes lit up and so did Ryder’s!! I set him down so he could lean on the shelf. He proceeded to pull boxes off the shelf at a rapid pace. The boxes tumbled around his feet and piled up to his knees. He was quiet, happy and entertained. Marty and I got to try on and choose perfect mitts to suit our needs.  Lucky for us, all the people who walked by giggled at Ryder in his Long John Box Fort. Many commented on how cute he was and how “busy” he was going to be when he could walk on his own. He grinned at every one of his admirers and continued pulling boxes off the shelf until Marty scooped him up so I could place every box back on their shelf.  I am not guaranteeing that I got each box stacked in it’s exact place or that each size sticker was facing out, but our mess was off the floor.  We left the store with new mitts, promises of warm hands, and happy…all three of us. 

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized how some people might have judged us for the scene that unfolded in that store, but I also realized that all judgers would be those without kids, or those whose kids have already grown up and they’ve forgotten exactly what harmless distractions they were willing to look the other way from, in order to get a few precious uninterrupted minutes to make a decision.

Ahhh, parenting is humbling.  Again, I am amazed at the things, I thought I would never do that I am doing and the things I swore I would do that I don’t! What a journey! J