WHAT DIDN'T WORK FOR US - THE FURNITURE STORE

In the interest of full disclosure, I thought it would be great fun to recall with you, my ones of readers, the moments in our parenting journey that have had us scratching our heads and wondering if we would make it through the day without poking our own eyes out with an ice pick.

Let's start with the furniture store.

We usually had good luck taking our kids just about anywhere that was family friendly. They behaved well in restaurants, the mall, the grocery store, church. Well, most of the time they behaved really well; there were, of course, times that did not have happy endings.

Our kids were about 3 and 6, or 4 and 7, when we took them into a furniture store. I can't, for the life of me, remember what we were shopping for; but we were surely ready to purchase something or we would not have been there. We did not routinely stop in at furniture stores just to browse. We had to have a specific purchase on the horizon to enter a furniture store.

Because our kids were usually pretty good when we were out in public, we gave no thought to unloading them from the van and entering this furniture store with them. Looking back, one mistake might have been NOT reviewing our expectations with them. I was really big on that. But perhaps we were smug and overly confident. Or perhaps some of our brain cells had died that morning, as is wont to happen when one becomes a parent.

Whatever the reason, our world turned upside down as soon as we entered that store.

The door had not even closed behind us before our TWO children had seemingly multiplied into SIX. I am not kidding. As soon as we were in the door, the kids zipped off in different directions and started climbing on coffee tables, bouncing on sofas, slithering under end tables, scaling bunk bed ladders, and grabbing every throw pillow within reach. And to top it all off, this store had an open staircase down to their lower level; so they naturally ran down the stairs, and back up again, down the stairs and back up again.

Paul and I were paralyzed.

We stood wide eyed and slack jawed while we watched, for a moment, the children of Satan completely humiliate us. I was wondering how they could turn on us like this. How could they possibly choose to ruin my life like this in public? I'm sure Paul was adding up how much it was going to cost us to pay for every piece of furniture they scratched, chipped, or marred with their grubby little paws as they ripped through the store like two tiny tornadoes.

What in the world had happened?

I figure the elapsed time in all of this humiliating activity was about 2 minutes, but things seemed to move in slow motion. There was a voice in my head that said "GET MOVING! STOP THEM!" But I think I refused, for a moment, to believe that this was happening to me. My kids had turned into those kids at the grocery store that I looked at with sadness and judgment. I was that mom who could not control her children. My worst nightmare was coming true.

Finally, we regained movement in our extremities and rushed off in two different directions to round up the little people who had plotted and planned this horrible exhibition to completely ruin our lives. I honestly don't remember what happened after that. I'm sure I was down on their level whispering through clenched teeth, putting a period after every word, and letting them know they'd be lucky to see their next birthday if they did not "STOP. RUNNING. AROUND. THE. STORE. THIS. VERY. MINUTE. OR. YOU. WILL. RECEIVE. THE. SPANKING. OF. YOUR. LIFE."

I am feeling flushed just remembering it.

About a year later, we took them back to that furniture store to buy a new bedroom suit for ourselves. We were going to use Paul's bonus to buy the first matching bedroom suit we'd ever had in our twelve years of marriage. And you better believe our kids got a huge lecture on how to behave in a furniture store.

Funny, after that last visit, that store went out of business. I think we scared them away.