WhitneyTo Be or Not to Be a Mother -Part Two
October 13th 2006 14:33
We’re going to the food store, just me and Josh. Nothing special. A local supermarket that I liked to shop in but this was going to be the first time I took my son with me. So I dressed him in an adorable baby blue and white velour one piece stretchie and then in an even cuter snowsuit (it was November and having limited knowledge of a baby’s thermostat I allowed my worries of him freezing and having to be hospitalized, guide me). We got to the store without a hitch. My husband and I had recently discovered the miracle of driving a colicky baby. He slept. I mean he slept and the crying stopped. Of course once the car stopped, the colic re-started. It was like an inverse proportion. The more driving, the less crying and vice versa.
O.K. so we got to the store and I laid him (in a special snuggly designed for shopping carts) in the front of the cart and then we entered the store. He was still sleeping - Praise the Lord – and I started my shopping. Already I could feel my shoulders relax. Why hadn’t I done this sooner? By the time my cart was halfway filled I was feeling pretty damn good.
Then just as I was reaching for a can of tuna I heard a woman - and I’m not talking about a bag lady or someone mentally challenged. I’m talking about your run of the mill middle class fiftyish/sixtyish suburbanite who probably has a brood of her own – say, “he’s so cute.” I look over to find her bending over my cart, her face this close to my teeny tiny infant son’s face, her finger touching his teeny tiny eyes, ears and lips as if he were some sort of display model. Of course waking him in the process.
“Don’t do that!” I screamed too tired and outraged to be the polite good girl I was raised to be. She immediately pulled away and started making excuses as to why she thought it was perfectly acceptable to put her germy stranger hands all over my infant son.
I don’t know what upset me more, the possibility that she’d passed on an Ebola virus to my innocent babe or that he was awake again and bawling his tiny lungs out. I picked him up and carried him as I tried to finish my shop but everyone’s eyes were on me. Bad mother, bad mother, they didn’t have to say it for me to know what they were thinking. Can’t you shut that kid up? Even though it was all women in the store their angry stares said it all.
My calm was gone and so was I. With my cart more than half full I left it. I raced out of the store and away from all those unfriendly glares. Back, back to the safety of my car. And then I drove and I drove while Josh slept and he slept.
O.K. so we got to the store and I laid him (in a special snuggly designed for shopping carts) in the front of the cart and then we entered the store. He was still sleeping - Praise the Lord – and I started my shopping. Already I could feel my shoulders relax. Why hadn’t I done this sooner? By the time my cart was halfway filled I was feeling pretty damn good.
Then just as I was reaching for a can of tuna I heard a woman - and I’m not talking about a bag lady or someone mentally challenged. I’m talking about your run of the mill middle class fiftyish/sixtyish suburbanite who probably has a brood of her own – say, “he’s so cute.” I look over to find her bending over my cart, her face this close to my teeny tiny infant son’s face, her finger touching his teeny tiny eyes, ears and lips as if he were some sort of display model. Of course waking him in the process.
“Don’t do that!” I screamed too tired and outraged to be the polite good girl I was raised to be. She immediately pulled away and started making excuses as to why she thought it was perfectly acceptable to put her germy stranger hands all over my infant son.
I don’t know what upset me more, the possibility that she’d passed on an Ebola virus to my innocent babe or that he was awake again and bawling his tiny lungs out. I picked him up and carried him as I tried to finish my shop but everyone’s eyes were on me. Bad mother, bad mother, they didn’t have to say it for me to know what they were thinking. Can’t you shut that kid up? Even though it was all women in the store their angry stares said it all.
My calm was gone and so was I. With my cart more than half full I left it. I raced out of the store and away from all those unfriendly glares. Back, back to the safety of my car. And then I drove and I drove while Josh slept and he slept.
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Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
If I had a kid I wouldn't let a stranger touch him/her. I won't even let myself touch a stranger's dog/