I am not a confrontational person at all, which is probably to my detriment at times. If I happen to find myself in a confrontational situation, I usually try to get myself out of it as neutrally as possible. This morning, though, I actually found myself having to keep my tongue in check. So strange for me!

The kids and I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries and other odds and ends. We stopped in the girls' clothing section to look at the ballet stuff, and Accalia and I stopped to look at a cart of $4 pjs. Ella started to chase Cole around the clothing racks, and as I was going over to bring them back to the cart I saw this older woman veer into the clothing section and start following Cole and Ella yelling, "Children! Children! Stop running around!" I brought Cole and Ella back, and as we were going back to the cart, Ella took one more turn around a rack and accidentally knocked off a dress. This woman was still following the kids, and started yelling at Ella again and saying in a completely disgusted voice, "Children running around! Look at these clothes all over the place!" Normally, I probably would have just gathered the children and left, but today I walked over to where she was mumbling and picking up the dress, and I took the dress from her hands, put it back on the rack and said, "Thank you, but these are my children", and I could see she got my meaning that I didn't care for her attempts to help out. She had such a look on her face, though, when she started back at me. I don't know if it was disgust at my response and how I wasn't falling all over myself trying to thank her, or if it was pure disgust at my out of control kids and what a horrible mother I was. At any rate, I'm sure she left the store knowing she's seen the horrors of modern parents and convinced that if I just started spanking them right then and there all would be right with the world. Oh, I was so ready to say more to her, but I could see she wasn't interested in anything more than quieting the kids.

We finished up our shopping after that, and amazingly no one else yelled at the kids.