Apr 24, 2016

30 Seconds in the Grocery Line.

It's been a pretty rough weekend in our household. Kaya and Phoenix have both had the flu for days; fever, sore throat, fatigue, queezy tummies.... you name it. Kaya has reacted much like you would expect from a 10 year old - she wants to rest. She has been playing on her iPad, watching some TV and drinking lots of fluids.

Phoenix has reacted very differently. He vacillates between hyper & angry, there is no settled time. And all of these paths lead to Meltdown Land. He coughs and cries and screams and coughs and hits and throws and coughs. It's a pretty vicious cycle.
Under the weather.
Today I knew that Kaya needed a break from him, so I decided to take him out of the apartment for a while. No way could he handle anything active, so we just went to the coffee shop and the grocery store. He did pretty well until we found ourselves in the line-up. As I was placing the groceries onto the conveyor, Phoenix decided that he should escape from his stroller.

I caught him just as he was about to run off. Then in the course of 30 overwhelming seconds the following occurred:

  • I picked him up with one arm while prepping the harness of his stroller with the other
  • he kicked off both of his shoes which flew far away
  • he scream-laughed like a lunatic
  • I got his butt connected to the seat of the stroller
  • I used one hand to restrain him at the hips while trying to use the other to clip his harness into place
  • the action of all of this moved the stroller back so that it hit a railing and the parent tray flew off, spilling it's contents to the ground
  • I continued to pin him into the stroller by the hips while trying to clip the harness while he thrashed and hit me and screamed and kicked me and knocked groceries to the floor.....
  • I calmly begged him to stop, to just let me pay for the groceries, to let me pack them and let me leave
  • the cashier quietly stared, waiting for me to put the rest of my groceries onto the conveyor and pay and leave.
Then the lady behind us spoke up.


This is generally a very bad development. People scold him or try to touch him and blow an already out of control situation into disaster mode.

But that's not what happened today.

She calmly looked at Phoenix, keeping her distance. She said "Boy are you a cute little thing. Do you like goldfish crackers? Because I have a bag of them here that I would like to share with you" She smiled at him. He smiled back and took a cracker from her while I swiftly strapped him into the stroller and began to finish my transaction.She chatted kindly to him and told me how adorable he was. She offered him more crackers and giggled when he tossed them onto the floor. Then she picked up the contents of the parent tray from the floor while I paid.

She changed the entire course of my morning.

Shopping with Phoenix is HARD!
With one simple gesture, one non-judgmental act of kindness, she made my entire weekend. Kindness is such a rarity for me and my boys - especially in the grocery line. There's something about waiting in the grocery line that usually makes people frustrated and intolerant of my little one's antics. But not today. Today it took all of my strength not to hug a stranger. Instead I write this in tribute to her. She's the hero of my weekend - and all it took was 30 seconds of kindness. 

2 comments:

  1. The world needs more people like her. Thanks for sharing and pass the tissue.

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  2. This was a very helpful article. I would have tried to do exactly what you say not to do. Knowing now to engage from a distance I can be part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem.

    ReplyDelete