Motherhood's Not So Shining Moment

Today I was home with Micah, who had a fever on Sunday and who probably had whatever had gotten me last Tuesday.  He was a pale shadow of his usual self yesterday, and was still in low battery mode this morning.

He spent the morning in his pajamas, being spoiled sick boy in our bed joined by his Star Wars Legos characters and Bunny Bear.  I finally got a chance to load his iXL with the Batman and Toy Stories games.  The iXL seemed like a really interesting device, and one of the accessories was a set of headphones that were the old fashioned kind (not the ear bud type, which I wouldn't want Micah to use and which probably wouldn't stay in his ear canals without the support of an auricle.)  What I should of checked out was how the games get into the device.  Not by a tiny cartridge like the Nintendo DSi, but onto the computer, through the USB port and into the iXL.  Major timewaster, though one of the fun features is photos can be loaded into it, and then Micah can both flip through them, and also draw on them as well.  It made for decent enough entertainment to keep him parked in the bed, under the covers - or he just felt lousy enough to stay put.

Mondays are usually my day to pick up Thea and Jackson to drive them to Ying Hua for after-school Chinese tutoring, so around 2:30 I got Micah dressed and organized (meaning he packed his backpack with the 'necessities' for travel: his iXL, a few Legos guys and whatever else interested him at that moment) and we set out.

The routine after meeting Jackson and Thea at Parent Pick-Up is to take them for a snack.  Today the request was for hot chocolate, so rather than go to It's A Grind for cafe hot cocoa, it was Dunkin Donuts.  Which still can be rather pricey if you're buying for three.

And since it was three versus two, Thea and Jackson got more grief from me than they usually do because they were trying to exclude Micah, and Micah wants to just be in the middle of what he perceives as their bigger kid wonderfulness he puts up with it.  Usually I enjoy taking the two out for their snack, but today it was more of a referee job whose only benefit was the nice large coffee.

As we were finishing up, a large new model, white Yukon pulls up to the curb and the passenger door opens and two kids who are smaller than my two (who are 5 and 7) get out, the older of the two has a coupon and a credit card in his hand.  No coats on, one of the two is wearing slippers without socks, both kids are a little on the chubby side.  The two got to the counter, place their order and take it back to the car.  I'm just sitting there taking it all in, somewhat stunned.

There is a woman behind the wheel of the Yukon, also on the more than just chubby end of the spectrum.

Once we finally get our table cleared and out the door, the Yukon is still there.  The two children make another trip in and by the time everyone in my car is buckled in and we're pulling out, the lady who is working the counter at D-n-D comes out to the car.

OK, I'm no better than she is, I just bought some of the same high fat, high sugar snacks for children.  But at least I parked my car, got out with them, sat down with them, talked to them instead of sitting for more than ten to fifteen minutes in a no parking/no standing area barking orders at two little ones who looked to small to even know what a credit card or a coupon are.

I wanted to smack her over the head with her designer knock-off bag.