Be Forewarned

Children, it's me ... your mother. I wanted to tell you a few things.

As you grow older, there will be people that will come in to your life who are real jerks have issues. Please don't let their negative behavior bring you down. Their nasty attitude is not because of you. They may try to make you believe that the reason they are jerks acting rude is because of something you have done ... but just remember that people who have no class will sometimes try to make other people feel bad, intentionally.

I am doing the absolute best job I can to raise all three of you in to conscientious human beings. It is my goal that as you grow - you will always mind your manners and be polite. I'd like to tell you to just turn the other cheek when people are nasty, but sometimes it's not very easy. Trust me, I know.

If you are in a Catholic elementary school and one of the nuns hits you with a ruler across your knuckles ... be forewarned that like your great-grandmother did for your grandmother ... I will march right up to the school - and tell the nun that if she ever lays a hand on my child again, I will lay my hands on her.

If you are in highschool and your 10th grade American History teacher makes you cry in front of the whole class because he was playing a cruel joke ... be forewarned that like your grandmother did for me ... I will march right up to the school, speak to the Principal, and have that teacher reprimanded so that he not only has to call you at home and offer you a formal apology, but he then has to make that same apology in front of your entire class.

If we are ever out in an amusement park designed and built for young children and a cranky old woman in a motorized scooter says to you when you are a 23-month old baby, in the five minutes I let you run free after having been contained in your stroller, "Watch where you're going!" and then scowls and shakes her head at you ... be forewarned that I will say aloud with the intent for everyone within a 10-foot radius to hear (including the cranky woman in the motorized scooter) "Be careful sweetheart, there are some very grumpy people in this world."

Maybe this cranky woman has had a rough day and perhaps she is not feeling well. Perhaps she is unaware that you are not yet two years old and are still wearing diapers and sleeping in a crib. I doubt this woman realizes that their mother, more than she, wishes her three toddlers would not scatter in three different directions and shriek at the top of their three little lungs.

However.

You are children ... and running and screaming with laughter is what children do. And if the cranky woman in a motorized scooter does not want to be surrounded by this kind of behavior then perhaps she would be better off staying home, or at least, avoid those areas which are teeming with small children.

See, I don't think that you are out of control. I think that as far as 23-month old children go ... you are perfect and you are acting your age. Your dad and I are very aware of your actions and are hypersensitive that you don't get "out-of-control". And although it shouldn't - it infuriates me when people are obnoxious about their annoyance by small children. Perhaps these jerks people were never children, themselves.

So please be forewarned ... I don't mean to embarrass you. My inability to turn the other cheek whenever one of you is involved, is an inherited characteristic. I'm following in the footsteps of the matriarchs before me.