Yesterday we took our quarterly trip to find shoes for Riley. Riles has a “unique” foot size: extra wide. For the uninitiated, that’s one side bigger than wide. It presents a challenge every couple of months to find him affordable shoes that fit comfortably. After 2 years of the same struggles I have finally come to the realization that his shoes are always going to be expensive, quite expensive. So instead of fighting to jam his foot into Target shoes, we headed straight to the Stride Rite store.
After the mall Stride Rite was a bust we motored to Maple Grove in hopes of them having a better stock of the extra wides. We entered the zoo (or madhouse, whichever you prefer) and quickly found the pair we needed to have sized. We waited, and waited, and waited for help. There appeared to be 2 people running into the back for shoes for about 6 families.
While we waited, somewhat impatiently, Riley began to explore the vast amount of toys the store had out for kids to play with. He was immediately drawn to a car ramp. He put a car on the ramp and zoomed it down the ramp. “Whee!’ he shouted. A young toddler girl wandered over and started grabbing the cars from Riley. I’ve had to get to this type of behavior from not only my child but other kids as well. We let her take the cars and I showed Riley the bin next to the girl where we could grab a few more cars. With each car we grabbed the girl would take them from us. Time to move on to something else, I figured.
We moved onto the puzzle stand. Riley started thumbing through the various puzzles on the stand, pulling them out and looking at them. The toddler girl followed us over to the stand to look. She moved in on Riley, pushing him squarely in the chest and screeching. She grabbed the puzzle from him. Stunned that this girl’s mother was watching her and not doing anything I squated next to Riley and helped him look at the puzzles without getting harassed.
The clerks were nowhere to be found so we had to shift to the back part of the store to get some help. I gladly grabbed Riley up to get away from this rude girl and mother. The backside of the store had a bookstand which Riles started purusing. We found a book and went in search of chair to sit down in. He pulled himself up at chair and began scanning the book. The girl from the front of the store found her back to Riley, and away from her mother mind you, and stole the book from Riley. She started to push Riley out of the chair. I had enough.
Unfortunately, my passiveness has bled into my parenting style. Her mother finally came over to her to grab her. In a literal huff I picked up Riley and said, “Come on, Riles. Lets leave her alone. We’ll go read elsewhere.” The mother heard me and huffed herself. I wasn’t sure if she huffed at me or at her daughter. But she got the point that I didn’t want her kid around my kid.
After we got help we were out of the store in 5 minutes. I hate judging how others parent their children. Riles has a lot of free reign in life. But one thing we don’t tolerate with him is poor manners with others. I wish all parents would do the same.
