Nov

30

Bulls in a china shop

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I took the kids to Target with me this morning and before I released them from the car I cranked myself around in my seat and delivered a Stern Maternal Lecture on how I wanted them to behave in the store.

“No running,” I intoned. “No screaming. No touching. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Riley.

“We don’t run and we don’t open the door and that coyote runned off in the woods and that’s enough milk, WIGHT?” said Dylan.

(We call him the Non Sequitur these days.)

The minute I dragged them through the automatic doors (after both of them bonked repeatedly into the closed EXIT doors, like they do every single time), though, it all went to hell. You know the expression “like herding cats,” right? It’s like that, only worse. Take two cats who are basically high on retail fumes and overstimulated by the many colorful displays and siphon out at least 50% of their brain cells so they are utterly oblivious to things like approaching carts, and NOW head ‘em up, Rawhide.

They frustrate me to no end in places like Target, but they aren’t exactly misbehaving. They’re overcome with the fun of it, pointing at things and squealing at top volume about the DOGGIE (on the dog food packaging, for god’s sake) and generally being children having a good (loud) time together, but I look around and I never (NEVER!) see other kids acting like this. Other kids are either standing by their mothers or tucked into the top of the cart, not galloping hand in hand through the aisles like deranged caribou.

I shush, I nag, I threaten, I rush through my shopping with a grimly frozen face, and I don’t really know what to do about it. I like that they’re having fun, but I worry that they’re being annoying, and I hate having to constantly push them out of people’s way or hiss “Guys. COME ON!” for the trillionth time when they get distracted by some mesmerizing object like a display of paper towels (Dylan: “HEYYY! WE have DOSE!”).

I’ve always been pretty hyper-aware of not allowing my kids to bug other folks if I can help it, because I never, ever assume that the things I find amusing are also going to be well-received by people who did not birth these hellions. But there I was in line at Target, fairly exhausted from iron-gripping these kids through the store, and the boys suddenly start doing this weird marching thing back and forth while Riley chirps “I-AM-A-CHRIST-MAS-ROB-OT!” (basically exactly like this) and Dylan laughs and laughs because HA HA HA RILEY IS A ROBOT and oh my god, you guys. What is a person even supposed to do in this situation? Who has to say “STOP BEING A CHRISTMAS ROBOT RIGHT NOW” in public?

(I didn’t say a damn thing. I pretended I didn’t know them.)

Do any of you have kids who act like . . . giddy drunken sailors when you’re out and about? What do you do, other than avoid all shopping until they’re surly resentful teenagers?

Nov

28

Holiday mixtape

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