my ode to patience

The other day, a grandma cut me off (practically raced to get in front of me) at the local grocery store. I smiled sweetly and let her go ahead (My kids were playing at the playland. Yes, the grocery store has a playland for kids! Really, who cares how cheap the food is... they have a playland!). As we spent the next 10 min. waiting in line, we ended up talking, and she went on to talk about how she has so much more patience now that she is older.

I hear that all the time from old people... that they have so much more patience now than they did when they had little kids. Yadeeyadaayadda.

Really? Of course you are so patient: you are dealing with kids (that are not yours) for maybe 3 hours! You don't really care so much what they do, because you know that they will be gone and will take all of those bad behaviors they are learning back home with them. Even I am SOO patient with other people's kids.

It's true that I am not the most patient person. And I'm working on that with everything that is in me (and so are my kids). I guess I just wanted to point out that mothers, even those of us counting to 3 (expecting our children to be RUNNING by 3), are still pretty patient people, mostly because our patience is being challenged more than anyone else. It's like a marathon runner who is passed by a sprinter. Come on... you're running a marathon!

So I just wanted to shout out to all those mothers like myself, riddled with the guilt of not being patient enough with our children. I figure that we are facing the Mount Everest of patience. Potty training, temper tantrums, no sleep, bickering, sickness, breaking curfews, etc. When we get to the top and our kids have grown up and left home, it will be all downhill. And then we will feel soo patient.