When Mommy is having a meltdown,  but we’re still cute….

My toddler loves to go shopping with Mommy. Does Mommy always enjoy that experience? Umm….nope!!

There are times when shopping with my beautiful children is pure bliss.

We wander the aisles of the grocery & department stores, racking up compliments on how gorgeous and well behaved my little angels are while my daughter points out all the neaterific things she sees everywhere with witty descriptiveness and my baby happily chortles at every grandmother who smiles at him. These are the moments of pride & joy in motherhood. I glow and think I could handle a few more of these wonderful beings.

Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are the “Mommy Meltdown” moments on a routine grocery shopping trip.

If you’re a mother and claim to have never had one of these, you are either actually an angelic being posing as a human mommy or a big honkin’ liar! I’m betting on the latter! 😉

My personal meltdowns have been triggered by a myriad of crazily challenging experiences. Want a sample? Let me see…

How about the time my daughter was pitching tantrums and trying to grab things all through the store? The icing on the cake was when she grabbed my coupon organizer and scattered it’s contents all over the cleaning aisle. An older lady came upon me in tears on my hand & knees, baby strapped to me in a carrier and my other hand holding the seat of the pants of a squirming toddler. She was very sweet and helped me gather up my many pieces of paper gold, assuring me this happens to the best of us now & then.

Oh, oh! And the other day when my sweet little girl was sharing Cheerios with her baby brother, and dumped the whole container all over the drugstore floor? That took awhile to clean up, especially since I made her “help” and had to keep her from putting the nasty crumbs into her hungry little mouth while baby brother cried from his perch in the buggy.

That same trip, as I strapped both kids into the car, she pulls two lip balms out of her pocket and exclaims “Surprise, Mommy!!”. Yeah, that was a fun trip back into the store.

You should’ve heard the lecture she got through our whole grocery trip about what stealing is, why it is bad, and what the consequences will be if this ever happens again. She can now be heard loudly lecturing random strangers in stores about not taking things without paying for them.

My most recent meltdown happened this morning at home.

Both kids were content playing for a moment, and I walked away for a minute to get something. Suddenly, I heard suspicious scribbling noises. As I walked back to the kitchen, asking Princess Peach what she was doing, I heard a clattering crash and baby protesting loudly. Miss munchkin ran guiltily away, pencil in hand, refrigerator covered in her hastily scribbled “artwork”, with the echo of me hollering “TIMEOUT! NOW!!!” following her into the other livingroom. Baby was looking at up me in irritation, still grasping the trash can lid in hand, wondering why everything was scattered all around and why I looked so frustrated. The next little while saw me scrubbing the fridge, gathering the trash, scrubbing the floor, cleaning the baby and muttering under my breath “God made them cute to ensure their survival”. 🙂

So, yeah, I’ve had my share of “I-am-so-embarassed” and “If-one-more-thing-goes-wrong-I’ll-implode” during routine trips to the grocery store, ill-planned visits to restaurants or even simply trying to get a few things done around the house.

What triggers your “Mommy Meltdowns”?