Several months ago a “crime” was committed in our house. Our family room couch suddenly broke and of course my children conveniently had no idea who broke it. The interrogation went like this:
Me: “Did you jump on Mommy’s couch?”
J and H together in perfect harmony: “Noooooooo”.
Of course after encouraging a confession with ice cream…I got:
H: Mommy, J did it!
J: Nuh-uh Mom, H did it!
H: Maybe L did it?
And I’m sure if L could move or talk he would have blamed one of his siblings as well. The crime was never officially solved.
Regardless of the jumper, the couch springs broke. So for the last couple of months I’ve been living like a college student making due with their parents furniture. My husband took a board from our garage and held it up the best he could. But the “band-aid” didn’t work perfectly. I always felt embarrassed that my husband and I with two good jobs had to say to guests… “Ooh don’t sit there” when they would try and sit down.
So this weekend I had had enough of the broken couch. I told my husband we needed to go look for a new couch. So Saturday we bundled up our three children and headed to the furniture store.
Of course to two seasoned couch jumpers, a furniture store is the playground of their dreams. Why jump on one couch when you can jump on 100 couches? Todd and I tried to keep our kids in tow the best we could, but while we tried to decide what color to put in our room…our two older children were getting impatient. Suddenly between choosing couch colors and matching chairs, H started to have a melt down. [Not the best choice to take them during their scheduled nap time] So there I was, L in one arm, trying to rope in H with the other, and listening to my husband say to me “I can’t handle this, let’s just go”. In a whirlwind we got coats on and tried the best we could to get out alive.
We got into the van and started down the road. Suddenly I looked down… “My purse is gone!” I exclaimed. Understandably in the tornado of getting out of the store, I left my purse behind.
We went back to the store. I wasn’t that nervous…we had only left the purse a few minutes at this point. My husband went in. With a sigh of relief I watched him walk out with my purse. I smiled…but through the windshield as he was crossing the parking lot I could see him shaking his head. He had found the purse…but it was missing my wallet.
The store was searched top to bottom, but the wallet was not found. Some person apparently felt the need to pray on a Mommy in a major hurry and took my wallet. So, two calls to my credit card company and the bank, and three fraud alerts on my credit report later, here I am. I have to now recreate everything, from getting a new license, to ordering new law license cards, to replacing insurance cards. I hate the thought of knowing someone is out there with all my personal information. I carry no cash in my wallet, so all they got away with was a credit card, a bank card, and 2 gift cards to Olive Garden! That night as I ate chicken nuggets and SpongeBob mac and cheese I was especially bitter picturing the taker enjoying the “adult” dinner I was so looking forward to taking with my husband.
I couldn’t help but think, what kind of person would do this? It was no secret to the people in that store that I was dealing with a lot that afternoon between my three children. Didn’t they have children? Didn’t they understand what I was going through? Couldn’t they cut me a break? Does no one feel sorry for a Mommy in need anymore?
Maybe I need to wear a Mommy badge…something to tell the world that “Hey, I’m a Mom, PLEASE give me a break”. Let me move up in line at the DMV when my baby is hungry and reaching high decibels with his screams, shorten the wait at a doctor’s office when the toys I brought in my purse don’t entertain anymore, hold the door for me at a mall so I don’t have to contort like a game of Twister to push my stroller through, stop rolling your eyes at me in a store when my 3 year old throws a fit waiting in line. And most of all…don’t commit a crime against a Mommy…give us a break, we need it!
Mandi
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