Brown Eyed Girl

One more reason NOT to take your children with you shopping!!!



We rode the carousel, eyed all the animals (in the very smelly) mall pet store, had a smoothie, and sat to feed Gray a bottle. It was time for mommy to do some bargain shopping at the Macy's sale racks, only to be interrupted by the very familiar and untimely " I have to go potty". Then the "look at me" under the clothes racks, and the fussy baby whom needed constant distraction, and the "I'm tired, and want to sit down". I continued only because I needed to kill time while we waited for Zach.
The finale of our shopping trip though, has traumatized me enough to always get a babysitter, or wait to untill I can leave them at home with my husband! I had kept the children distracted and as happy as possible for almost 2 hours in the mall, plus was already weary from 2 days at a hotel while Zach was in a business training class. This all equaled a very tired mommy. My feet hurt, my back hurt, I was mentally stressed. Soooooo... all this can add up to lack of clarity, therefore leading to poor choices.
Yeah, this doesn't end well for me. I then, with my ideas of finding the quickest way out, to end the misery for all 3 of us decided that I was NOT about to walk ALL the way back to the corner of the store to take the elevator down and have to walk twice as far with a fussy baby and a whiney 4 year old, and my sore feet. So why NOT just go down the escalator? It's right here, and so quick... shoots us straight down to exit the mall. The stroller? NO problem, if I hold it just right and balance it we'll be fine, I'm strong enough to just get this over with. The 4 year old? NO problem, we've gone down these at our mall, and she thinks its fun, I mean she pointed it out right away when we got in here anyway! So I head for the down escalator, carefully and quickly assess the stroller angle, and think twice that this is a VERY bad idea. In my exhaustion and haste I thrust the stroller forward onto the moving stair and pop it back to perfect balance..... PHEW! The baby is safe...wait...no... MADDY... !!! COME ON!!! NOW... NOW... NOW!!!

Here I am.... going down the escalator in the middle of a VERY upscale Macy's.... like a total idiot trying to unsafely balance a baby stroller down an escalator, with my now, screaming bloody murder, 4 year old little girl on the top of the escalator! MOST of the store has come to stare and watch what disaster had has fallen upon the Macy's escalator. No problem, just me and a dangerously balanced stroller STUCK going down slowly as my daughter is having a full panic attack! Seriously, WHAT DO YOU DO? My mind was reeling! She had gotten scared of the escalator AFTER I had already put the stroller on the stair, she pulled her hand out of mine and dropped down. She sat on the top stair, put her fingers in her mouth and began screaming and crying. An older lady popped out of the clothing racks up top and stood by her. I tried to coax her down over and over while I was still going down. I yelled up to the lady, who was now trying to help Maddy up, "can you help her?" Another lady came to Maddy's side now. I reached the bottom which was now filled with every makeup counter lady at Macy's and their customer. I tried to act casual... even though I had totally panicked. One lady said, "I can watch your baby, so you can up the other side and get her, but I 'd don't see the up side, it must on the other side." NO, NO, that just wasn't right, I've already abandoned one child! The elevator is too far, where's the other escalator, how will this just stop and be over!? AHHHHH! This is not happening! I just yelled up to the ladies at the top, "can you just help her down?" Maddy wouldn't budge, I'm sure the others around thought she had lost her feet to the escalator. The two ladies had to actually pick her up in order to get her down. As I stood at the bottom, watching, like an idiot, who cannot believe that this just happened! I wanted to begin chanting, " I am a good mother, I am a good mother", just to convince myself and the many others around. As the first lady on the scene handed me over my traumatized daughter she simply says, " You know, there IS an elevator."
How do you argue with that? I quickly mumbled, " I know, she wanted to take the escalator, she just pulled out of my hand!" So then, how do you justify the stroller, how can I explain my exhaustion, they were whining and so I WAS trying to make it better for them. REALLY! Basically none of my excuses would have worked, I was done, I was shamed in public for a bad parenting moment. How do you successfully recover from this sort of incident anyway?
We had to sit down in the shoe department in order for Maddy to sit in my lap and regain composure. Every moment I had to be in that store was painful. I felt the eyes, and the judgement. I got a great shirt for Gray for $3.99!?
Oh, yeah..... won't be taking the children with me again for a VERY, VERY long time.


P.S.(I am very relieved that we were shopping out of town!)