- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
-
Sparkle (0)
After dropping Brandon, my 9 year old, off at the bus stop this morning, I took my 4 year old twins to Starbucks. Going to Starbucks with Aidan and McKenna is always a crap shoot. Are they going to spill? Is one of them going to have a meltdown? Lately, however, they had been great, so I thought I could handle it.
The first 15 minutes went very smoothly. Aidan got a bacon/egg breakfast sandwich and a hot chocolate. McKenna asked for her usual, a slice of lemon loaf and a hot chocolate. I got my giant Venti Latte. We found a table by the window and sat down.
Aidan started to pick the bacon out of his sandwich. Bacon is very popular in our house, so upon seeing it, McKenna wanted to ditch her breakfast cake and have a bacon/egg sandwich, too. I tried to talk her out of it, but she kept insisting. "When the line dies down, I'll get you one." I thought she'd forget. She didn't. "Look, Mommy. No more line!"
I ordered her a second breakfast and was able to convince her to let it cool first. When she started eating it, she had to copy Aidan and pick out only the bacon. Great, I spent $3.50 so she could eat three slices of bacon.
With a soft wiggly piece of bacon in one hand, McKenna reached for her hot chocolate. The drink was double cupped to keep it insulated. This prevented the lid from attaching properly. As she grabbed her cup, the lid popped off and warm dark brown sweet liquid spilled all over the table, all over McKenna, all over Mommy, all over Snuggle Kitty, all over my purse, all over everything. I quickly tried to salvage as much as I could and moved the kids to the next table. A woman came and started to help me clean up. "I have kids, too," she said. "I know what it's like. Let me help you." She laid a stack of napkins on our horrible mess.
At that instant, Aidan noticed that his bacon was all gone. "Where's my bacon?" he yelled while I was thanking the woman. "I want more bacon!"
"Your bacon is all gone," I said holding a dripping napkin. "You finished it." I was tensing up, but was not about to lose it in Starbucks.
"I WANT MORE BACON!" he screamed. This was a first, a spill and a meltdown at once. "I WANT MORE BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He was screaming at full capacity. "I WANT MORE BACON!!!!!" The entire cafe was silent except for my son's screams. Everyone just sat there staring as our drama unfolded.
That's it, time to cut and run. I grabbed my purse, grabbed my coat and picked up Aidan. I said as calmly as I could. "Time to go." I knew it would be the last appearance I'd be making at that particular Starbucks with my kids for a long time.
As I lifted Aidan up, he immediately grabbed my hair and started yanking. My hands were full, so I was helpless to defend myself. I could feel everyone's eyes on me.
He let go, and then I felt his hand slam into the front of my face. I was holding back the tears as I imagined what everyone must have thought about my child and my inability to control him. McKenna just looked on in disbelief.
"You are showing such patience," said the woman helping me. But all I could think was how badly I wanted to get out of there.
Then he struck me again, on the side of the face, following it up with another hair pull. My face was burning hot. My eyes were welling up. With McKenna in tow, I moved toward the exit. As I walked by one of the tables, an older woman who had been quietly sitting and writing in her notebook tore a sheet off and handed it to me. "Here, I just wrote this down. Please take it." I took the note and stuffed it in my pocket. I figured she was a family therapist and was