It was just one of those moments...

Yesterday, in an effort to pass some time while Mike was at work, I took Jake with me to Barnes and Noble to spend a gift card I had received. I normally try to leave Jake at home when I go shopping because he just has better things to do than to hold my hand and wait patiently while I look around. But yesterday I was feeling brave so off we went.

Oh, my Lord. About two minutes after entering the store, Jake found this display of colorful plastic bags that were hanging from a table filled with books. Before I could stop him, he made a beeline over to one of the bags and grabbed it which knocked down all the other bags along with four or five books. So, I thought, no problem. I just picked everything up without losing my cool and we headed on over to the children's section where they have a Thomas the Train play table. So, basically, we went to the bookstore so that Jake could play with trains for half an hour. Whatever. He was happy and I was out of the house. We also met a darling little girl who had apparently run away from her mother and really wanted to show me every stuffed animal in the store. I guess she thought I worked there or something because she also had me getting down backpacks for her to look at and she picked out a book on how to speak French and told me that I should buy it for Jake. She was lovely, but boy was her mama mad when she finally found her. So, I took that as my cue to leave the area and go look for an adult book to read.

I had already decided that I was just going to pick something off of the best seller table because I knew Jake would not be still for me to actually look through the books and I figured if it's a bestseller it would be good enough for me. I put him down for five seconds to look at the back of two books I was trying to decide between. Five seconds. Now, Jake's normal speed is turbo. Amy says he looks like a wind up toy when he gets going. He just starts zooming around. It's kind of like the Energizer Bunny on a triple shot espresso from Starbucks. I'm not kidding you that he went straight back to those plastic bags and pulled them all down from the table toppling over all of the books again. And while I was picking up that mess, he went to the next table and did the exact same thing. That's when I lost my cool and said "Jacob Michael, STOP"! And as I was running over to get him, my booty (which we all know is the biggest part of my body) ran into another stack of books on another table and I knocked them over as well. So, that's three tables, three book displays, on the ground. Lovely.

I kept waiting for someone to come help me. But nobody did. There were several people there giving me disapproving looks though. As if to say, "that's what she gets for bringing her child into a bookstore of all things". Thanks people. It's that compassion for one another that's going to change the world.