Mean people suck.

It's so hard for a blindly optimistic person to stay "up" sometimes. The past two days have been a little tough for me. Yesterday we took the kids to Pizza Hut so that my oldest could use her "Bookit" coupon she earned by reading. We were having a great time until the family two tables down started to distract us. Was it the crying children that bothered me? No, it was the just plain MEAN parents that REALLY bothered me. They were very loudly chastising their 6 young children-Not one positive thing was said by them the whole time.

Now don't get me wrong, I lose my temper at times and might raise my voice on occasion, but I would never say the things they were saying to ANYONE-let alone my children. Things like "You better shut up your mouth or I'm going to kick your butt." Now that could very likely be an empty threat, which would explain why the kids kept at it. However, I just think there's a better way to get your kids to quiet down. It seemed like they were just feeding fuel to the fire.

I thought about what I should do-I couldn't just watch the verbal abuse and not say anything (it's not in my nature-though I am very non confrontational, so you can imagine how uncomfortable I was feeling at the time). I finally decided to go with the nicest possible route I could go. I walked over and told the mother "Your children are beautiful." She replied with a "Thank you." I then followed up with "You're very blessed." I just hoped that either she would realize that she truly is blessed to have her children-there are so many out there that want for what they have. I hoped for that, or for maybe a little bit of "Mommy guilt" to kick in and start working its magic-the way it tends to do. I know with my head that what I did probably made no difference at all for that family. But my blindly optimistic heart is going to tell my head to think otherwise.