The Child Within

I’m in my forties, have held down a management job, have three children and yet I still can’t escape certain childish behaviour.

I keep asking myself when am I going to grow up?  Am I alone in this?  (please don’t all say yes).

I went to Sainsburys today to pick up some final food for two children’s events I am holding tomorrow night.  Due to all the rushing around I’ve been doing lately, I haven’t had time to invite any of the children’s friends over.

To put this right and because tomorrow is the only Friday I now have free for the time being, I have let my youngest son invite about 6 friends round for a Christmas Tea Party between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm.  And at 7.30 pm my eldest son is having 3 friends round for a sleepover. 

I must be mad, but everyone is happy and we’ve prepared games and events for the night.

So, back to Sainsburys.  I went down the soft drinks aisle and stopped by the part I wanted.  My daughter was helping me scan the items when I heard a woman near us say to her husband "mind the baby behind", meaning us.

His reply was something along the lines of "they shouldn’t have stopped so close to us" which I thought was a bit rude and I know he was hoping we’d hear it. 

I should have ignored it, but I did the same as him and in a slightly louder voice than normal (as I walked away) said "well you shouldn’t have stood in the middle of the aisle then should you?".  I should have pulled my tongue out as well and wiggled my hands about at my ears just to add to the childishness behaviour of mine.

And if that wasn’t enough I spotted someone in the store that I didn’t want to talk to (you may remember the posting about the ‘friend’ who wants me to get in touch). 

Quick update - she collared me one day, gave me a big hug along with her mobile phone number, expecting me to give her mine.  I haven’t made the call, because I’ve simply had too much going on and like I said before am not in the right place to re-friend at the moment.

I walked towards the end of the aisle and saw her virtually in front of me.  She hadn’t spotted me, so I ran round the back of her with my trolley and hid down the next aisle!!!!

Why couldn’t I approach her and apologise for not phoning and explain why?  I just didn’t want to get into a conversation, but at my age you’d think I could handle a simple task like that.  And because I’d done that, I was then on alert round the rest of the store, peeping round aisles before going down them.

I marvel at my own stupidity sometimes, but I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like letting anyone down or making others feel bad.  You could label me a doormat I suppose and to be honest I feel like I did enough of that with this ‘friend’. 

The only way I can deal with things like this sometimes is to just walk away because then I don’t have to interact.  It works for me. 

But my sister would probably say "build a bridge and get over it!".

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