Go Ahead

A few days ago I was Christmas shopping, by myself, after the kids went to bed.  I wrote about how good it felt to have a little patience; more than most others.

I had the most fortunate opportunity to go shopping, again by myself and on a Saturday nonetheless, in mall-land.  I was feeling so good, I found myself not only patient with everything - the traffic, the lines, the grumpy employees, that I began to tell others, "Go ahead."

For example, when I was at a stand still in traffic and had inched forward to that part of the shopping mall parking lot where one line of cards intersects with another and there is NOT a stop sign, I was the gracious driver that kept my foot on the break, creating a larger and larger gap between the car in front of me and myself, just so I could wave to my perpendicular friend "Go ahead!" and allow him or her to squeeze in front of me.  I did this a few times.  And good karma rewarded me with excellent parking spots time and time again.

I realized, too, that I will lose my patience with my kids.  I mean, I don't go off all screaming and threatening crazy ("You see that Santa over there?  I'm going to go tell him not to bring you any presents if you don't stop all your crying right now!" -- seriously, some mom said that to her 2 year old right in front of me at the Bass Pro Shop Winter Wonderland).  But when it's time to get ready for bed and my children are giving me a hard time, I hear my voice get a little louder and a litter sterner a little too quickly.

So, as I was sighing satisfactorily about letting my fourth shopping comrade "go ahead" of me in some sort of line proving I was the most jolly shopper, and I was thinking about how I did tell Luna that if she continued to kick her feet while I was helping her get dressed for bed, I would tuck her right in without any books, I decided to combat my lack of patience with a "Go ahead!" attitude.

Take this photo for example.   Luna has new pajamas.  They are zebra stripes and she wants to wear them all day long and I'll tell you a secret about my husband.  If he could, he would dress her in footed creature-print pajamas all day every day.  But on Sunday I had gotten her out of her zebra pajamas and into an outfit.  When I got her dressed for bed (without all that silly kicking), she grabbed her beloved purple skirt and said she wanted to wear it to bed.

Go ahead!