Yesterday, I went to the train museum with my children.
This really warrants its own blog post, but in the meantime, IT happened.
Exhausted (remember, another post is coming), I got to the second-floor area with the toy trains children can play with. I sat down next to another woman, and we watched the kids playing. They love this room, and it’s nice and restful, because the children actually want to stay in one place, and the adults can thus sit down for a few minutes.
As I sat quietly for a moment, I realized how weary I was. Being the sort who chats up strangers, I turned to the woman on the bench with me and said, “They ought to have nap hammocks for the parents in this room.”
She said, “No kidding.”
Pause.
She asked, “Which one is yours?”
This time, I relished it.
“Oh, that one. And that one…and, let’s see…that one.”
I know you all know what she said next, once she closed her surprised mouth.
“Wow…you’ve really got your hands full.”
“Yeah.”
***
OK, so here’s the fun part. Of course, I spent the next several minutes gleefully imagining good responses to this comment. This well-meaning comment, never meant in malice, but which basically defies response. This comment that you get all the time once you hit some number of children. (Is it two? Is it one misbehaving child? Is it three? I can’t remember.)
I considered the following:
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m currently pregnant with quadruplets, too.”
“Yes, I have realized I am in over my head, and have been trying to decide which one to give away. Do you want one?”
What would YOU enjoy saying?
***
And here is a wonderful response on My Years Off.
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