Oh boy...do I have a doozy to write about today. One thing is for sure, being a Mom is never boring. My children (one in particular) always seems to find a way to keep me on my toes and today was no different.
Oh my wonderful, beautiful child Amber...I have come to the conclusion that this child was given to me by God specifically to teach me a lot about myself. Of my three girls she is the one that most reminds me of myself when I was a child. She is constantly dreaming. She sings more then she talks. She knows for a fact that she is a princess and she loves all things that sparkle. She is also easily frightened, yet wants so badly to be courageous. She is the most confident of all my children, yet she cares the most about what she looks like. She is stubborn to no end, yet is extremely compassionate and caring. But, the biggest thing about Amber is that her days and nights are consumed with one thing, DANCING! She dances everywhere and this is not an exaggeration. She dances to the dinner table, she dances to the bath tub, she dances to the car, and she dances in her dreams. Now being a dancer myself I would have no problem with this habit except for the fact that Amber can be extremely clumsy (so unlike me...ha ha). There is not a day that goes by she does not fall, trip, crash or break something because of her dancing habit. So, today when she was dancing down the grocery store aisle I should have known this would not end well...
I decided to make a stop at the Whole Foods right next to Amber's preschool. I thought I could squeeze in a grocery shopping trip in the hour I had before Peyton got out of school. I very rarely go to Whole Foods but today because of my time limit and the fact that I was on the hunt for some organic cream cheese (don't ask) I decided to stop. Everything was going fine. The kids were behaving; I was making my way through my list and Amber had been stopped a few times by costumers telling her how much they enjoyed her singing and dancing but again this was nothing out of the ordinary. I remember that I had just got done asking Amber what kind of jam she wanted (raspberry was the answer) and I turned to put the jar in my cart when all of the sudden I heard a huge crash beside me and a flood of some kind of liquid substance was splattering everywhere. At first I thought the entire shelf of jam must of suddenly fallen down or something. After I settled in from the shock and I was better able to make an assessment of what had happened, I quickly figured out that Amber must have "danced" into a display tower of white wine boxes at the end of the aisle. Six to eight boxes of wine were spilling out all over the floor, flooding the aisle, glass was everywhere and Amber was laying in the middle of the mess screaming and soaked. (Is it wrong that my first thought was not "oh no...is my child hurt?" but rather "how on earth am I going to pay for all this wine?")
What happened next seemed to be happening in slow motion as I sat Amber up and looked up to see six workers by our side asking if we were okay. One of the workers spotted that Amber's leg had been cut and was bleeding pretty badly so she rushed off and came back with a towel for me to clean her off a bit and by this time the manager of Whole Foods was by our side. He asked me to go ahead and pick Amber up and follow him to the back to get some band aids. So we began to follow him as he wheeled my cart with Eden in it (who at this particular moment I had never seen so quiet) through the river of wine and glass and passed a cart of two small children whose jaws were to the floor as they stared at us all the way down the aisle. We made our way to the back office and the manager helped me bandage Amber up (who in perfect Amber fashion was crying harder about the fact that her clothes were wet than that her leg was bleeding). I was beginning to formulate a strongly worded speech in my head about how dancing recklessly in the grocery store is never a good idea, but I no sooner opened my mouth to let her have it then workers from every angle began to shower my kids with goodies. First, it was organic whole wheat chocolate chip cookies (about the size of my fist). Then, it was kid sized reusable bags that had cute little dinosaurs eating fruits and vegetables on them. Lastly, a very nice lady came over and handed my kids a stack of stickers about recycling and a coloring book to go with it. The nice lady began comforting Amber, who was still sniffling over her clothes, and telling her how brave she was. Now I am no dummy, I knew what was happening here, they were trying to cover their butts in case I was some crazy, sue-happy mom, so my fears of having to pay for the wine quickly subsided. The nice lady with the stickers and coloring book then led us to the front of a check out line where they did not charge me for my bags and two young gentlemen were eagerly waiting to escort us to our car (which I declined since after all I had only got half way thru my list and had two bags of groceries)
We finally got to the car safe and sound and thank God I had a change of clothes for Amber because I am sure I would have heard her crying about them all the way home. We begin to drive home when I decide now would be a good time to give Amber my speech I had been working on. I began with, "Amber did you learn something today???" Amber was quiet for a minute while she chewed on her organic cookie and then with a twisted smile she said, "Yes, I learned that it is okay to dance in the grocery store as long as it is not next to the wine!" Good grief...what am I going to do with this kid?
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