Post office woes

I remember one time, before I had Benjamin, I overheard a couple of young women in the checkout line at Target. There was a baby a few aisles over who was crying and his mother was trying to comfort him. She was unable to quiet him, but it really was not a disruption to my shopping trip. The girls behind me, however, complained , "Why would you bring a baby to Target". So ridiculous. It's not like the child was throwing a full-fledged tantrum or like the mother was doing nothing about it. I remember thinking that there just might come a day when those girls have a 3 month old child who cries at the store or the restaurant or the auto shop. Well, I hope those girls weren't at the post office the other day because if they were they would have had plenty to mumble about.

If you have been to the post office at any point the week prior to Christmas, you know that there are long lines and perhaps a few crabby people. I usually try to avoid such places when I'm lugging around my bundle of energy and squeals, but this week I could not, at least not if I wanted our mail to get delivered in time for Christmas. Benjamin is such a good, happy little boy that sometimes I try to get by with doing things like taking him to a busy post office right before his nap time. Every once in a while I'm reminded that even good little boys have their limits. Here's how it went down....I hauled Ben out of the car, carrying him and pushing the stroller which I planned to set him in once we got inside from the cold. We managed to make our way through the doors and the lines were crazy, of course. I promptly set down my bag and packages and put Benjamin in his stroller....well I tried to put him in his stroller. He did that thing that toddlers do when they don't want to sit, or lay, or stand up for you. You know. The thing where they screech, arch their back, throw their arms directly above their heads and become dead weight. That thing. I tried again. He arched again. The line moved. I picked up my things, moved the stroller and followed our place in line. I gave him a toy and tried to set him in the stroller again. Same thing. Line moved. We moved. I gave him a snack and tried again. Well, you know what he did. By this point I was sweating in my down coat and we had collected a bit of an audience. I'm sure some people were chuckling and some were rolling their eyes. I would normally remove my cranky kid from situations like this, but hello, Christmas packages will not be delivered before Christmas if they are not sent before Christmas. So I held Ben....all 24 pounds of him. I held him, stood in line forever, pushed the stroller around, operated the post office kiosk and fed Benjamin snacks with my free hand. By the time we were finished it was nap time for both of us. Not my easiest errand of the week, but I prevailed and got a bit of a workout. I hope our audience was amused.