An open letter to the lady I was rude to in Wal-Mart.

Dear Lady,

First, I'd like to thank you for taking SUCH an interest in my little family.

Yes, I'll agree with you - I have two very cute boys.  And yes, they have a LOT of energy.

How wonderful for all of us that we were able to cross paths down EVERY SINGLE AISLE, even when I went out of my way to try to avoid you.

Also, I'l like to take a moment to thank you properly for all the unsolicited parenting advice you had to offer.  Clearly your wisdom in raising children knows no bounds!  I think it's a wonderful thing that your boys -spirited little scamps at that age! - were able to calm right down when given a little task or chore to help their grocery-shopping Mama out.  How wonderful for you that having your boys pick out which pork-n-beans to buy - one big can or two little ones, Mama? - made them into such well-mannered little children while you shopped, but I'm afraid my boys, one of whom I cannot catch and who has knocked down three displays and two people, and the other of whom is strapped into the cart, throwing his entire body violently backwards and yelling "HELP! HELP!" at the top of his voice in an effort to extract himself from the cart, may be beyond the "choosing which marshmallows to buy" stage.  But you're right.  It's excellent advice.  I'll certainly consider trying that next time we shop.  Which, of course won't be HERE, because I'm pretty sure we're going to be asked to leave and never come back if zj breaks anything else...

Anyway, is that your son with you, all grown up now?  How wonderful that he takes time out of his busy day to take his Mama to the grocery.  Such respect!  Oh, he's not that busy because he still lives at home in your basement, is unemployed, and spends his day looking at porn on the internet and playing World of Warcraft?  Well, still, it's nice of him to bring you out.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for acting so rude and snappish after I was nice to you for the first 15 times you butted in and I'd also like to apologize for telling your to mind your own damn business.  We're in this together, you and I.  Raising boys is a tough business sometimes, and I certainly shouldn't have snapped at someone who was so CLEARLY on my side.  I was just a little stressed out at that moment, trying to get the bottle of syrup out of cj's hand, since he had somehow managed to open it, and to try to catch zj before he ran into the elderly gentleman with the walker and oxygen tank again. 

You understand, right?

And surely you forgive me.

We Mamas of boys have to stick together.