I used to love book stores. In Seattle there were three second hand bookstores within walking distance of my home and on a Saturday morning I would get a cup of coffee and wander through each of them for hours.

The other day I took the twins to Barnes and Noble. It was early on a weekday, not crowded at all and pretty quiet as bookstores tend to be. In the children’s section, I had a bit of trouble locating a particular bit by Richard Scary, and so my son took advantage of the inattentive mom and kicked off his rain boots and started running back and forth through the board book aisle.

His sister came yelling to tell me he had taken his boots off and as I caught up with him I received a very nonchalant shrug in response to my question about where his boots were. And then a nice woman working there handed them to me. The tops of his rain boots are shredded up from being the training items for “do it myself” shoe accessorizing. She’d found them strewn about on the floor over by the train table. Humbled by my inability to keep us composed even in the children’s area, I then upped the anti and asked them to join me in looking for another item out beyond the gates of the children’s section.

We made a game of it, marching, marching, over to the escalator. Now, our escalator experience is somewhat limited. A two seat stroller doesn’t really work out on them, as I found out one day at the mall when we almost lost a front wheel… and I almost had a heart attack as the escalator chugged away at my little parade stuck and thump, thumping against each step as it ground by our jammed up bit of equipment. But now we are more grown up, and we shop together without the aid of straps and strollers.

So we took hands and stepped onto the metal contraption. “Do it yourself” took only moments to kick in and one was taking steps ahead and yelling that she would not hold my hand and the other sat down on a step behind me. Despite the mild panic I felt at the approaching end to our escalator, we managed it in three healthy pieces and proceeded on to the next destination category.

I couldn’t find what I wanted, and I was convinced they had it, so I kept looking. A gift for a friend, something specific. As soon as my mind began reading the titles and noting authors both kids disappeared in a frenzy of giggles and boot stomping. I took a pause to call to them – I told them to stay with me – I hissed at my son to stop climbing on books. They came nearer and nodded and I looked back at the stacks. More giggling, louder, the sound of a book toppling from a shelf. This continued for awhile, until it got rowdier, faster, more excited, and finally I ducked around a stack and caught my son by an arm as he whizzed past me.
“OUCH!!!!!” he screamed. Oh you have got to be kidding me, I thought, but what I said was, “You need to stop that.”
The woman in metaphysics scowled at me. I wanted to address her. I wanted to ask her what exactly she recommended I do in a case like that? Pray for him to stop?

Perhaps avoiding bookstores for a few more months is the ticket, but once you are in you are in, and when all else fails, you gotta take the bull by the horns as they say.

I marched, marched, them to the checkout. My daughter was smiling the smile she gets when her brother gets in trouble, and he had quickly forgotten our incident and was busy singing a song about marching. At the counter, another woman pointedly told me that they were such 'sweet children', and I felt my mouth hang open. I know she heard the "Ouch" yell, I am sure metaphysics was not the only one thinking I was just awful, but it is what it is. I cannot imagine the look I gave her, but I know it was something between amazement and horror.

When I turned around to gather my brood, my son looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I am so very proud of you.”
"Well I am very proud of you too," I said.
And I meant it. I always do.