Yesterday could very well have been one of THOSE days, one of THOSE days that my momma' said there would surely be...
We're at Target and there we were in one of the aisles, and the shopping excursion almost came down to me leaving a cart-full of stuff in the middle of the store and walking out with each twin thrown over my shoulder....the twins were THAT bad!
I think we had only been in Target for about 10-15 minutes, a new record low for us actually when in a store, and I was about to bail completely and bail fast. Why? Because Paige and Taylor had decided to pitch the worst of fits, voicing their displeasure at not getting a certain toy, and more toys. They were both squirming, howling and crying. After a few attempts to explain to them why they were not getting that toy, or more toys, to no avail, I decided that was it. We were outta' there....
And, then it happened. For the first time ever, I found myself saying what I'd heard my own mother say to me and my brother when we were growing up and were totally unruly: "Wait 'til your daddy gets home and hears about this..." Then, something even more remarkable happened. The twins slowly calmed themselves down. Oh, it wasn't instantaneous, but those words, as they lingered before Paige and Taylor, had impact and achieved a pretty great result. They stopped fussing. They stopped howling. They stopped their obstinate behavior. And, it was nice!
We were actually able to continue our shopping. Just moments earlier, I was thinking to myself I would not take them shopping again for a while...and then my newfound strategy appeared. A strategy that I'd grown up with yet had never actually used myself with the twins. The familiar warning as a child that I'd now just issued for the first time to my own children: "Wait 'til your daddy gets home and hears about this..."
And, isn't that how we all learn - through trial and error, that some things work, that some things don't, that what used to work no longer does? The strategies that had worked so many times previously when shopping with the twins to stem their unwanted behavior weren't working at all yesterday; and then suddenly, eureka, through trial and error, a new strategy instantly came to me. Parenting is pretty amazing like that. It's definitely a continuous journey and the ability to pivot and punt on a moment's notice is a skill that as parents we seem to continually have to learn, to master and to re-invent as our children grow and change.
Oh, sure, there are still some things I know I can't do when shopping with the twins yet like trying on clothes. It's just not going to happen. One of the twins will inevitably try to open the dressing room door and scamper away when I'm half-naked, or they will both discover they can peek at other shoppers through the divider walls. How do I know these things will happen? Because they already have. I know that I am still better off buying clothes when I am by myself. But, we can at least still shop together; and although there will certainly be more days like yesterday (after all momma' told me there would be days like that), when we go shopping and if I'm contending with "Can we go now? I'm hungry, I want that toy and that toy, She's looking at me, She's touching me, She pushed me" etc., I know that when all else fails, I can now turn to the "Wait 'til your daddy gets home and hears about this..." as a last resort to curb their behavior. And, when that strategy proves no longer effective, well, it's pivot and punt all over again.
