Kindness: Part 6 - In Which My Groceries are Once Again Saved by Someone Else

I think it is likely that my little girl will grow up to be a world traveler.  Or at least want to go to college out of state.  Every morning she wakes up (often before the sun), finds her way into my bed, pries my eyelids open, and says, "Mama, I want to go somewhere."  Every time she hears a door open she drops what she is doing, comes running, and says, "I want to go with you."  Even if I'm just going outside to throw away a smelly diaper.  

Sometimes, when she wakes me up, I want to tell her that recent science indicates that the biggest threat to her safety and well being is the driving of her sleep deprived mother.  But, since she is only two, I figure she doesn't care much about the similarities between fatigued and intoxicated driving.  Instead I get up, nurse the baby, find some breakfast for the older kids, get clothes and shoes on everyone, and a few short hours later we are ready to go somewhere.

She used to ask to go to the museum.  That made my little nerdy heart swell with pride.  We went through a phase shortly after her surgery and our new baby when she would ask to go to the hospital.  That would make me a little bit sad for her.  Now she usually asks to go to Costco.  I am apathetic about this request.  It usually seems reasonable and practical, so often I agree.  I like shopping with my kids at Costco.  The carts have two seats, so, with my youngest in a baby carrier, everyone has a place.  And there are samples on every isle, so I don't even have to bring my own fruit snacks to keep everyone happy.  

Last time we went to Costco it was a chilly day.  After we finished our trip through the maze of industrial sized laundry detergent I bundled everyone up and we headed outside.  About halfway between the door and my car I commented about how the weather had warmed up considerably since we had first arrived at the store.  Just as I was removing the hat from my overheating infant, the rain started.  And it didn't start gradually.  We were all soaked completely through before I could finish saying "darn."  Since I was already in the middle of the parking lot, I decided there was nothing to do but keep going.  I piled my kids in the car and loaded the groceries as quickly as I could.  

When we got home it was still pouring.  Everyone was already wet, so I tried to hurry them inside and started bringing our soggy boxes of goldfish inside.  My baby was no longer too warm and was starting to fuss.  As my three year old ran inside he slipped on the wet tile and hit his head on the corner of the bottom stair.  And my little girl stood inside the door insisting that she wanted to go somewhere again.  With three upset children and a 10 pound bag of chicken nuggets that needed to go in the freezer I stared at the pouring rain and decided that my 3 gallons of milk would just have to wait.  

And then my neighbor drove by.  She and two of her boys rushed over and started unloading my car for me.  They brought in everything.  And the checker at Costco did not give me a box, so every single unreasonably large item had to be carried individually.  They made at least a dozen trips, and the boys even politely wiped the water off their feet every time they came into my house.  (Their mom did too, but I felt like such thoughtful behavior from children was especially noteworthy.)

With the groceries taken care of I was left to attend to my cranky kids.  Within a few minutes everyone was dry and cheerful (and ready to go somewhere else.)

Kindness: Parts Previous

Kindness: Part 5

I realize that most of my posts about kindness involve grocery shopping.  Perhaps something about the brightly lighted displays and fresh flowers of a grocery store puts people in a cheerful, cooperative, and helpful mood.  Or maybe it's just that most of my interaction with the outside world happens at grocery stores.  Also, it is likely that a grocery shopping trip is the time when a very pregnant mother of two young children appears to need the most help.  But, whatever the reason, I find people to be very kind when I am grocery shopping.

This week I had a very short shopping list, so we made it through the store pretty quickly.  The store wasn't very busy, but there was only one cashier, so the line was quite long.  When it was our turn to check out, my three year old decided to help load the groceries onto the conveyor belt.  He grabbed a gallon of milk and dropped it.  The carton broke and milk exploded everywhere.  Everyone had to move out of line so that the mess could be cleaned up.  After the milk had been mopped the cashier rang up my groceries.  Just as she announced my total someone pushed his way to the front of the line and said, "Wait, I got you another gallon of milk."  He had been behind me in line, and when he saw the mess he ran to the back of the store to replace the exploded gallon.

On an unrelated note, we have survived our first potty training experience at our house.  Survive is too dramatic a word.  The whole process was remarkably uneventful.  It did prompt some rather hilarious conversations about anatomy.  But I try to remember that someday my children will grow up and be old enough to be embarrassed.  So, while they are fabulous stories that would make you laugh, I have decided that they probably ought not be broadcast in an online venue.  Just know that life has been pretty funny around here lately.

Kindness: Parts Previous

Kindness: Part 4

Proving that I am not the only person in the world who occasionally encounters a kind stranger, today's post comes from another redhead from Colorado and former roommate of mine.  Technically I don't think we ever had the same address, but some people just count as roommates no matter where they live.

From Sarah:
Today I am grateful for Ted Talks and kind hearted souls. Yesterday I made an attempt to get from my severely delayed flight to a connecting flight within 30 minutes- crossing through customs at immigration. I asked a handful of fellow travelers if they wouldn't mind me cutting in line, and when one kind soul (Max) responded with a look of empathy I burst into tears. He was incredibly encouraging and then processed to sprint with me helping me to navigate through JFK to terminal 2. In a moment of rest he mentioned he had been traveling for 48 hours and was stranded in Portugal because a passenger had a heart attack. He watched an inflight Ted Talk (incidentally I did too) which shows the brain's response to stress is to reach out to others. So in his exhaustion he decided to help me. I arrived at the gate three minutes after the door to the plane closed, but I'll never forget Max, more stressed than me seeing an opportunity to help another human soul.

Kindness: Part 3

Most of the time I enjoy grocery shopping with my kids.  I don't enjoy grocery shopping with tired and cranky children.  But if I plan well, time things right, and don't try to hurry, we can generally have a good time at the store together.  We have a good time smelling all the flowers and looking at the neatly piled heads of lettuce and picking the largest bunch of bananas we can find.  We always buy bananas.  I don't like bananas at all.  I am decidedly outvoted.  I haven't eaten a banana in years, but I have purchased dozens weekly since my oldest first started eating solid food.

When we just need eggs and milk (and bananas) we shop at Aldi.  It's kind of a fun little store.  And it makes me smile that when we get to the parking lot my little redhead knows exactly where we are.  "Mama, we are going to buy milk and eggs!"  One of my favorite things about shopping at Aldi is that the shopping carts have two seats in the front.  It is so convenient to have my kids sitting next to each other sharing a package of fruit snacks.  Actually, the shopping carts are pretty much the entire reason that I shop there.  If they had a bigger selection I wouldn't ever shop anywhere else.  If any other grocery store in my area ever decides to offer double seated carts I will become a loyal costumer.

Aldi has one of those fancy cart contraptions near the entrance to the store where you pay a quarter to get a cart.  When you return the cart you get a quarter back.  The last time we shopped at Aldi we parked kind of far away.  A gentleman parked sort of near me had just returned his cart.  He came back to his car and saw me with a child in each arm.  Instead of getting in his car and driving off, he went back to the front of the store and got a cart for me.  He met me in the parking lot and patiently held the cart to make sure it wouldn't roll down the hill while I loaded both kids.  He gave them each a high five and wished us a good day.

Kindness: Part 2

I play the organ at church once a month.  Usually the easiest time to practice is after the kids are sleeping.  Occasionally it occurs to me that I am all by myself in a large, dark, empty building.  The church building is in a safe area, I never go very late, and I never feel unsafe.  If I did feel unsafe I would stop going by myself.  Still, once in a while, I wonder if it's the smartest thing in the world.

Last week while I was practicing an gentleman came in and told me he and some friends were on their way in to play some basketball.  He said, "I came in to tell you first.  We just didn't want you to be scared."  I thought that was very considerate of him.  I'm not sure that hearing some people playing basketball in the gym would have been more frightening than a stranger showing up in the chapel to talk to me, but I appreciated the gesture anyway.

Kindness: Part 1

Kindness: Part 1

I was watching the news the other day.  There is a man who has become quite adept at purse snatching at a local day care.  In the time it takes a mother to walk inside the building and retrieve her child he can emerge, break the car window, remove the purse, and disappear.  I guess he is extremely successful. 

Stories like this are common.  And they are followed by a consistent dose of government stalemate, international discord, and large scale disasters.  As many have observed and lamented, the news might be more aptly named the bad news.  Despite the deluge of negative press, I have found people to be generally kind, generous, and polite.  The small acts of kindness I frequently witness will almost certainly never be considered worth reporting.   I, however, am not a news outlet of any scale, and I don’t care what is newsworthy.   And so, this is the first in what I hope becomes a very long series of posts in which I intend to chronicle the small and seemingly insignificant moments of kindness that I frequently experience. 

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Friday was errands with Mom day.  We woke up early and packed a breakfast of cheerios, raisins, and string cheese.  We dropped the Texan off at work so that we could have a car for the day.  Our first and most important errand was a visit to the pumpkin patch.  It was a lot of fun, and we spent much longer there than I anticipated.  It was well after lunchtime when we left. 

The next errand on the list was grocery shopping.  I’m still pretty new to the whole mom thing, but one thing I am fairly certain of is that taking two hot, hungry, and tired toddlers to the grocery store is a very bad idea.  Another thing that I am acutely aware of is that once I get two hot, hungry, and tired toddlers home to be cooled, fed, and rested, the chances of me getting back out for more errands are quite slim.

We decided to go to Costa Vida.  (That would be the Royal We.  The junior redheads don’t really get a vote in such matters.)  The fact that it shared a parking lot with the grocery store was really the determining factor.  As it turns out, Costa Vida has a much different lunchtime clientele than Chic-fil-a.  Rather than the mommy crew I found myself surrounded by the left-the-office-for-a-quick-lunch crowd.  And while Costa Vida does have a children’s menu, I found them to be conspicuously lacking high chairs.

This was not the first, and I do not expect it to be the last, meal I have eaten with a small child on my lap.  It is one of my newly acquired talents.  We were quickly situated, and soon both of my children were happily chewing on a quesadilla.  Just as the group sitting next to us got up to leave my little girl decided that black beans would probably make excellent face paint.  After smashing them quite thoroughly in one hand, she shifted them to the other in a demonstration of her ever improving dexterity.  Then she smeared them on her cheeks and accidentally put a few in her mouth.  Eating the food was clearly not her intention and she angrily sprayed the stray beans out of her mouth at her brother.

On his way out the door one man looked back and noticed her antics.  He came back in and told me not to move.  He brought us a handful of napkins and stopped for a minute to chat.  He told me a little bit about his five year old son.  He took some time to say hello to my kids and play some peek-a-boo.  He told me they were adorable.  Then he went back to work leaving me with two well-fed and cheerful kids that were ready to go grocery shopping. 

Therefore, I conclude that the world is not full of purse snatching jerks.