Momzilla

The kids are all asleep and I am up blogging. It has been a long day. I will explain. But first I would like to address something that my friend told me this morning about my last blog. Laughing, she said, "Hannah, did you have to pull out the toilet humor?!" My response to that was, "Jeez, what do you want from me? Poop is a big part of my language. I'm a Mom for crying out loud! I deal with, and hear about, bodily functions on a hourly basis!" So, if that was a little much for some of you out there in blogger land I apologize. I will try to not talk about poop or pee for the next 3 blogs. At least, after this one.

Today, we went to a birthday party in Wichita. I was excited about the party, but I was even more excited about seeing family and hanging out in a town bigger than Great Bend for a few hours. I used to live in a suburb of Wichita until about 3 years ago when I moved here. I do not at all regret the move but I had gotten used to being 15 minutes away from everything. It's not like that here. You smaller town people know what I mean. So, we went to the party and had a blast. We left at about 4pm. The whole evening ahead of us. Now on the long 2 hour car ride over none of the kids fell asleep. That means no nap for my little one. One of the things I almost always do when I go to town is go to a particular book store for awhile. Are you seeing where this is going?

I am talking to the kids on the way to the bookstore (mostly to my 2 year old) and giving them a pep talk. "If you guys can be good in the bookstore for me we can go to a movie in a big movie theatre later. Show me how big you can be! I know you can do it!" And so on and so forth. My daughter I am not so concerned about. We can spend hours in a bookstore and have the best time. My two boys though, I hadn't tried this with. My little one especially, has difficulty in stores. I know this. We have been working on this. It has gotten a lot better since they were placed with me 3 months ago and more often then not we can go to the grocery store with no incident. Do you know what they have in grocery stores that they don't in bookstores? Shopping carts.

We all walk into the book store and I head straight over to the coffee counter and order a white chocolate mocha. While we are waiting for it to finish my daughter heads to the kids section, my son heads to the bathroom and my youngest stays with me. We browse in the clearance section by the coffee counter. Now he is getting excited! He loves books! And this place is even cooler than the library! I get my coffee and and my son from the bathroom and head to the kids section. It is set up with some toys in the middle and lots of kids books around it. I grab a few off the shelf and ask my 6 year old to look through them to make sure he can read it before I buy it. I tell my daughter to look for something she will like. We have 30 minutes before we have to leave for the movie. My youngest and I head over to where the toys are and I browse in the Christian children's section.

Next thing I know, one kid is running around the store acting like he's an Indian, one kid is asking me every 5 seconds "What does this word say? I tried to sound it out but I can't get it." and the other kid is whining because she can't decide what she wants. So much for my relaxing trip to the bookstore. The last straw was when, in the middle of the store (did I mention there were a lot of people there?) my youngest grabs his little bottom and shouts, "Mom, I have to go poop!! I need to go now or it's going to come out!! I HAVE TO GO POOP!!" Needless to say, my stress level skyrocketed! I took him to the bathroom and then headed straight to the checkout. As I was paying for our books my youngest thinks he needs to sit on the display case they have by the register. I grab him and tell him to sit at my feet until we are done. I am smiling apologetically to the cashier. We are ruining her quiet and cool atmosphere. She half smiles back. He is sitting at my feet saying very loudly, "No, no, no, no, no" well, you get the picture.

As we are walking out to the car and I am very frustrated! I tell him he was very naughty and he made me very angry. No, this is making me sound like June Cleaver. I was super mad and he knew it. My voice was raised and I had the 'Mom is gonna blow' look going on. By the time we get to the car he is howling. We are all sitting in the car and over the cries my daughter asks if we are going to the movie still. I told her I needed a minute. I sat there and thought, why am I so angry? Really? I took a 2 year old, with no nap, who has a problem in stores, to a quiet bookstore with no shopping cart and expected him to be good? What was I thinking? He reacted exactly how any other rambunctious little boy would. I am totally overreacting here! My heart was racing and I was madder than I have been in a while!

I sat there and silently prayed. "Lord, these kids do not need an angry Mom. I know that I am overreacting to this situation. I'm not sure how to calm down quickly. Please help me. I want to have fun with them today and make good memories. I don't want them to remember that we had to go home because they were in trouble." The howling had stopped. I told them we were going to the movies and then I prayed out loud, "God, I need You now. I need You to speak peace into this car. I need You to speak obedience into my children. And most of all I need You to fill me with peace so we can have a fun time. Amen." All 3 kids echoed, "Amen".

We went to the movie theatre. All my kids stayed with me the whole time. My youngest started out in my lap and within 5 minutes was asleep and slept through the whole movie. The other two had a great time. We really enjoyed ourselves! After the movie we headed home. My kids wouldn't have that memory if I had let my anger get the best of me. It's okay and sometimes even correct to be angry. But I don't want anger to get the best of me. It's something God is working on in me.

Now it is time for me to head to bed. Tomorrow I get to go to church and then see BCCC's rendition of 'Beauty and the Beast'. All is quiet in the Hannah household. I still have lots of laundry to do and there are a few dishes in the sink but that will all have to wait. My bed isn't calling me anymore, it's yelling at me!