a little act of kindness

there are times when i feel like i've spent my entire day herding cats & wrestling rabid monkeys.

i was having one of those days this morning, but we were in dire need of cat food, so out we went to meijer's. boys in stroller, me wearing em & praying for a quick trip. i hadn't washed my face or brushed my teeth, conrad had blue streaks all over his face from an experiment with markers (he refused to let me wash it & in the interest of getting to the store before noon, i decided it was not a battle worth fighting), val had fallen in love with the container of coffee i picked up & insisted on carrying it all over the store, & emma, while perfectly happy to be worn by mom, kept digging her toes into the waistband of my too-big jeans so that i had perpetual plumber-butt while hunting for the elusive cat food. during all of this, i was singing the sesame street song over & over in order to head off high pitched screams of "bih-birrrrrr!!!!" (big bird) from the boys. needless to say, i was NOT feeling like a put-together-mother-of-the-year type.

as we were waiting in the check out line, however, one sweet old lady came up to me, touched my arm & said "i've been watching you from that bench over there, & just wanted to compliment you on your children. they are so well-behaved & perfectly adorable." after an hour of singing "sunny days, sweeping the clouds away...." to a smurf-faced conrad, while hitching up my pants & trying to persuade a tearful val to part with his coffee, i was too shocked to come up with anything to say in response, so she patted me on the arm, said "you're doing a good job dear" & walked off to her bench.

it was a small thing, but it made me feel like a million bucks & i was grateful.