Homemaking..Star Date 30

I know my children are crazy...stop staring....

I am in a position that many other military wives are in...a sudden shift as children realize that daddy is leaving. My children know there is something happening and while we have explained it to them they are still children and they are going to act up because they are upset.

I have the great fortune to be the mother to two awesomely loud funny boys. I love them more than I can say. But I must admit sometimes since they are so embarrassing I want to hide from them in closet in the mall. I would never do such a thing...they have the ability to point me out and they both know my name...first and last...I can not run from them.

My husband does not deal with the embarrassment that the boys bring us in the same way I do...I laugh. Life is so short and we are constantly trying to make children into little adults...why? I don't remember constantly being around adults as a child. I was able to have so much fun because I was around my peers a great deal of the day.

I remember hanging from a tree with my dress around my ears (I of course was forced into shorts before allowed outside) as I was being dared by the neighborhood boys to jump.... I had fun. When I went out with my mother I knew my ass would be grass because this was the age before child-reasoning and the harsh looks given if you spanked your child....well kinda. When I was three years old I threw a tantrum of some Barbie cereal that had a diamond in it...in the middle of the commissary. My father was deployed and my mom was holding my new baby brother. She spread out his blanket put him on it grabbed my ass and and whooped it with her flip flop...it was the one and only time I EVER did anything like that in public. All she had to do after that was glance at her shoe and I was right as rain. But anyways, a woman got in my mothers face about the ordeal and my mom cussed the woman a blue streak picked up her baby and grabbed her newly behaved, hicupping daughter and walked out the store. I was not being dragged out and I knew better than to act special with that woman still seething at the tongue lashing my mother had just given her.

Now as we are in the child-reasoning era, I have to figure out new ways to deal with my children as they test their limits and become smart enough to see that mommy is not going to spank or time out them in public. Why you ask? Because the public is judgmental. Nothing I do is right when it comes to discipling my children. I see the looks and I see the whispers as my two year old practices the use of his favorite word. The single people and the people with the young babies who say "My child will NEVER do that". SHUT UP! Damn! I mean really way to feel superior over me. My child is hard to handle and willful and I have two of them with the same temperament. They are polite and lovely for others. They pick up things when they have been dropped help small children who have fallen and scream "Butt burped!" After they have passed gas even though they are so short no one heard it or smelled it.

I have many bad times out with my children. I hear people say I should stay home then...don't shop with them...really? smart guy? I am a military wife what the hell do you think I should do? My husband works 24/7 they either go with me or we starve.

But for every time my children act up throw themselves on the ground screaming loudly I have that time when they are helpful and respectful and engaging and funny. They are no longer babies who can sit quietly as I grocery shop they are actual real human beings I can not keep them silent and expect them to sit like dolls while I roll through the grocery store. So I give them things to do.. they help me get the vegetables the fruits they tell me what we are missing from the house. We sing songs maybe we do a jig in the aisle. And if you see me wave bye to my toddler when he is throwing his tantrum please leave him alone he will follow me when he sees that my life continues even when he does not want to act right. He will calm down and he will move on to the next thing we have to do.

I might sound angry and I think I am a little bit I mean really there is no such thing as the perfect child and no such thing as the perfect parent. I am not perfect and I never claim to be. But I cater my parenting to what works for my children....How about the public do the same!

In conclusion...

Live long and Judgment free (HA!)

*Disclaimer* I am not saying I want to old school whoop my children I am saying that I want people to stop acting like it's so horrible that children throw tantrums and look at the parents like they are horrible parents...or stare and make comments as a mother is having a bad day with her children in the grocery store....