the self righteous eye roll

Do you remember that song from Shania Twain, "Honey I'm Home"? In case you need a refresher, you can find the lyrics here. My day went something like that.

The morning started off okay... until I combed my hair after the shower. As a girl, you know when you are going to have a bad hair day. I take my hair out of the towel. My eyes fall on those falling strands; my eyebrow lifts up, and I ask my hair, "Oh, you are going to be like THAT today are you?" I spritz the detangler on my disheveled mop, run the comb through, and the hairs stand on end in rebellion. Is there even a point in blow drying today? I can already tell it's just not cooperating. Fine, fine, I decide it's a pull-my-hair-back kind of day.

Moving on to make up. I study that face in the mirror and think, "Maybe I'll do a quick waxing too." Oh, the things we do as girls. Now, I just got my eyebrows professionally waxed about two weeks ago. I've done it myself many times. Today, I could have probably held off another week, but I thought since I already have the wax out and heated... might as well roll with it. Well, WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT, I'm putting a little wax line across the uni-brow hot spot... and my wax is quickly cooling down. I ponder.... maybe I should reheat this before I go further. Naw. It'll be fine.

[hindsight moment: EH. WRONG.]

No, it wasn't fine. I didn't realize I got some extra wax stuck a little too close to the inner brow. I put the wax strip on, rip it off... and... uh oh. I ripped off a chunk of the inner brow. Ugh. I carry on and must be shook up by this point because I butcher another chunk of my eyebrow. For the record, that was the first time I've ever made a mistake waxing my own brows!

Bad hair day and I butchered my right eye brow. Time to go to the store for an eye brow pencil.

We make a quick stop at Best Buy and on to Target.

Along the way, I spill soda down my white shirt. Lovely. Oh, and when I knelt down to pick something up earlier, my jeans started to rip. It's okay, they were my fat-day jeans anyway, so they don't fit that great either (Helllooo PMS).

Now, if you've read my recent posts... we all know Elijah has been testing EVERYTHING. He's trying to get a rise out of me, and I'm working very, very, VERY hard on keeping my patience, ignoring, calm-cool-collected discipline, etc. At the same time, we're also sick and tired of whining behavior and tantrums. It's a fine line. A fine line, indeed.

I know exactly what I'm getting at Target. We make a beeline to the cosmetics section. I head straight to Physicians Formula... well, where Physicians Formula used to be. It's not there. We walk up and down the two aisles, no luck. I ask someone if where it is, and she slowly... slowly... slowly... walks the aisles and concludes they must not carry Physicians Formula at this Target anymore (are you kidding me?!)

Ugh, fine. I'll get another brand. I'm quickly looking for an eye brow concealer/shadow, or a pencil as my last resort. Elijah and AJ have Hot Wheels and are quite content... until... Elijah's Hot Wheel isn't working anymore. The wheel won't turn right.

Let the whining begin.

"Moooooom... the wheeeeeel isn't tuuuuurning!" and he does the bounce up and down magic dance, in hopes it'll make it work.

Mom says, "I'm sorry sweety. Let's try to fix it in when we get home. And please, no whining."

"Mooooooooooom get me another one! This one isn't woooooorking! I want anoooother!"

Mom is growing a bit impatient, because not only can I not find what I'm looking for, now I got a whining kid in my ear, "Elijah. Stop. Whining. You have another garbage truck hot wheel at home. No more whining, that's one."

"But it's noooooot working. And don't say that to meeeee!"

Well, you get the idea, we get to "that's three" quickly. I hold his hand/arm to prevent him from collapsing to the floor in a fit because I've been cracking the whip on "no more whining." Now he's mad that I've found a way to discipline him in public. (At home, it's time out. My public solution now was to "time out" standing directly next to me. And if you don't stand, I hold your hand to make you stand next to me).

He's mad. He shouts, "LET GO!" and he screams. And he cries. And he carries on. And on. And on.

And on.

I find what I need and we're walking to check out. Bare in mind, this whole time has only been about 5 minutes. Now, he's screaming and shouting and testing me the most he's ever tested. I'm dragging him along like a limp baby doll, he's fighting against holding my hand and screaming bloody murder. It goes down in history as the most embarrassing mom moment.

The worst part... and the main reflective point of this post... was the LOOKS. Yup. I like to think of it as the self-righteous-LOOK.

You know it. If you have a toddler who has had a melt down in the store, you know the LOOK.

All the strangers around you. Usually people who have kids big and grown look you up and down, look your kid up and down, lift an eye brow, throw their nose in the air and look away.

Yeah, give me that look, because... you are better than me? Because your child never had a tantrum? Your child never tested the limits? Stranger #1 looks away.

I get to the check out line. Three lines open, all full, all taking forever. There are three ladies ahead of me. One even has a child Elijah's age. Elijah is still wailing and carrying on. Now he claims he has to pee (which, by the way, is his excuse when he is in trouble having a tantrum... "I have to pee" and he thinks he'll escape the time out). Apparently the first two ladies are a mother and daughter, the daughter has a baby (not with her) and the gal in front of me is an acquaintance of the other two (they went to someone's baby shower together). It's amazing the things you learn about people's lives standing in a long line.

Grandma-lady looks in her 50s-ish. She sports nice fitting, dark blue denim, cute shoes, and prissy cutesy black and white shirt. By the way, in case you couldn't figure out, Elijah is still screaming bloody murder. I stand in line with my one item praying, "Lord. Give me patience to not smack this child upside the head. They may call CPS on me if I do." Grandma-lady stares at me. She looks at Elijah and does the eye brow lift. She looks back at me. Scans me up and down. Yes, that's right, stare at my stained t shirt, my funky eye brow, and my frizzed out hair. She gives me that look, as if I'm some terrible white trash.

She looks away and has some small talk with her daughter.

I'm still trying to ignore Elijah and remain calm, yet assertive. Cesar Millan runs through my mind, "calm assertive energy... calm assertive energy..."

Gal in front of me turns around and looks at Elijah, looks at me, and looks away. The other gal looks at me, then Elijah, looks away. Then grandma lady looks back at me, scans me up and down... looks at Elijah... scans him up and down... rolls her eyes and looks away.

(ignoring... ignoring... ignoring everyone right now...)

She looks at me. Again. And rolls her eyes. Again.

Now I just fold my arms over and stare at the back of her head, ready to burn holes through her head. She must feel my burning eye power because she quits rolling her eyes or looking at me now.

We finally made it through the line (girl in front of me let me go before her so Elijah could "go to the bathroom" I piped up and said thanks, but he's just making excuses to get out of being in trouble.)

All that eye rolling and mad dogging I got today really made me think how cruel some people are. Why are people so judgmental? Have they never seen a child having a melt down in the store? Do they really think that I'm happy standing there with a screaming kid? Or that the eye rolling is making me feel any better? Maybe they think the eye roll will stop the tantrum.

We all know what it is. People like to feel above others. They like to look at someone else and think, "Well, at least I'm better than her." or maybe, "My child never did that. I'm better than you."

It baffles me that people really have the nerve to give such dirty looks. They don't know me and yet find it acceptable to scan me up and down with disdain. Do people think my kids are like that all the time?

I made a blog post a while back... probably almost two years ago about judgmental people. I always think of a line from Romans 14, "Who are you to pass judgment on someone else's servant?" People who claim to be Christian should know better than to give the self righteous eye roll. People who claim to be free spirited... "we all should live how we want" should let me live how I want and stop giving me the self righteous eye roll.

I won't deny... if the lady looked at me one more time, I probably would have made a rude comment. Luckily, she was wise enough to look away.

As frustrated as I was, I held my ground. When we left Target, Elijah calmed himself down. I followed through on discipline at home as well. Despite the judgement, I knew I did well, and I could tell Elijah learned his lesson: no whining, no talking back to Mom, and no screaming fits in the store.

By the end of the day, I just had to laugh it off. A stained shirt, frizzy hair, a funky eye brow, and people who have the audacity to think they are better than me. Who are you, Jesus or something? Nope, your not? Then I don't give a fiddler's fart what you think. Stop judging me.

Maybe next time we see a kid having a melt down at the story... we'll smile to the mom instead of judging. We all know parenting is hard. Nobody is perfect at it and no child is perfect. Children test and parents are put on the spot. No matter what the parents reaction... don't judge! You never know how bad of a day MOM is having (with her fat day jeans, spilled soda t shirt, whacked out hair, and butchered eye brow!)