Small Acts, Huge Gratitude

Today has been a day of ups and downs.  I wanted to write about what I am thankful for today.

• Listening to the rain on the roof.
• Eating a York Peppermint Pattie.
• Getting my nails done.
• Going on a walk in the rain.
• Project Runway.
• Reading Book of Mormon.
• Nice evening w/ Autumn…playing w/ dolls, watching Pocahontas, bath.

Autumn & I stopped by WalMart after I picked her up from daycare so I could drop off her prescription.  It started POURING rain and the lightning/thunder was so bad that the power went out in WalMart for about 10 seconds!  Anyways, Autumn was pretty good during most of the time we were in the store.  But, when we got to the check out line she started acting up.  She wanted something but wouldn’t tell me what it was and so she just started screaming and hitting me and trying to bite me.  I got down on her level and held her hands and told her that she was acting ugly and it’s not ok for her to hit and bite me.  That just made her more mad and she started screaming louder.  Usually I would take her outside until she could act nice (like if we were in a restaurant).  But, we needed to check out so we could go home.

The lady in front of us kept giving me dirty looks like, “Why can’t you control your child?”  And the guy in line behind us kept exhaling loudly like, “Uh, this is why I don’t have kids.”  Autumn’s screaming just kept getting worse and I was about ready to start crying b/c I didn’t know how to help her and everyone around me was thinking I’m a bad mother.  Anyways, it was finally our turn to check out.  We stepped up to the cash register and the cashier asked if Autumn would like a cookie (she had a box of them that I guess she had bought for herself).  I said yes, so the cashier handed Autumn a cookie and all of a sudden the crying stopped and Autumn was happy as a clam and was so well behaved the rest of the time we were in the store.  I was SO GRATEFUL to that cashier for such a small act of kindness that meant the world to me.

We went to leave, and it was still POURING rain.  So, I made a run for it.  We were good until we got to the car and then I had to unlock the car and put Autumn in and the groceries.  A lady had come out of the store behind us and she had an umbrella and came over and held it over Autumn while I got the car unlocked.  Again, such a small act of kindness that meant so much to me.