How We've Become "That" Family

Kristen over at Motherhood Uncensored posted a funny and honest column on how they've become "that" family----you know, the one that gets the glances, the frowns, the whispers. She asked for people to comment on how they've become "that" family.

I've decided to tell a story here:

It was early 2005, one weekend afternoon. I decided that the girls needed dress shoes for Easter. Fairly Odd Father also needed to go to the store, so we decided to take the entire family (that would include a newborn son, a two-year old daughter and a four-year old daughter).

We went to a local mall which is a little crappy, but has a good, cheap shoe store inside; perfect for those dressy Easter shoes they wear once. Once inside the store, though, I knew we had made a mistake.

A mistake because it was too late in the day, too close to dinner. The selection at the store was poor, probably because everyone else had done their Easter-shoe shopping weeks earlier.

Our oldest daughter was looking at shoes, not really understanding that just because a shoe is in the rack doesn't mean that shoe is in her size. She pulled down a pair of tiny, glittery heels and announced, "I want these".

"I'm sorry, honey, those aren't your size. They only have these", (point to a few lame shoes, none meeting her expectations).

"I want THESE". Her face got set into that look that made Fairly Odd Father and I glance at each other with an "Oh Shit" message in our eyes.

We started to strap our 2-year-old daughter back into the stroller, and gather the winter coats and shoes that were strewn across the floor. Our son was sleeping peacefully in a separate stroller.

For a few minutes there was much negotiation. With that going nowhere fast, Fairly Odd Father scooped up our now-crying daughter and brought her to one of the benches outside of the store to try to calm her down.

I was left with two strollers which I somehow got out of the store. Seeing and hearing that my husband was getting nowhere with our oldest, I decided to try to steer the two strollers toward the exit.

By now, her screams were echoing off the walls of the mall. When I say she was having a full-blown fit, I mean to say that this was a FULL-BLOWN FIT.

I turned a corner by the exit and waited for the screams to get closer. FOF had daughter slung over his shoulder as he tried to keep from getting kicked in the face.

I noticed a security guard walking next to him.

At the exit, FOF quickly laid our daughter's coat on the floor and plopped her on top of it. Somehow, he was able to get her into her coat. At this point, I saw the security guard squat down next to us and look from FOF's face, to mine, to our daughter's, to the other two kids in the stroller.

I figured he was waiting to see if we'd lose our temper and start slugging her. However, FOF realized that the security guard was actually trying to figure out if we were together, or if FOF was actually stealing some child from the mall. I almost laughed, because, if there was one child to steal from the mall, this was most certainly NOT the one anyone would want.

Fortunately, in this case, our kids are all little "mini-me's" of FOF and I. Security let us go without comment. I'm sure we had quite a few people watching us at this point.

The cold air hit our daughter's face like a slap. She quieted down almost immediately and was chatting calmly by the time we drove out of the parking lot.

FOF and I, on the other hand, were wrecks. Nothing like a simple family outing to age you 10 years.