My Single Mom Life

For the first time since November, the roads were clear and easy, and Publix was not full of crazy old blue hairs ramming me with shopping carts.
It was lovely I tell you!
Just absolutely lovely!
The aisles were a breeze to walk through, no one was anywhere near my ass with a cart, no old ladies stealing my bread outta my cart, no snatching a can of spaghettios outta Sebastian's hands, no clogged lines at the deli, no long lines at checkout.
It was beautiful.
I almost shed a tear.
Nothing but year round locals as far as the eye could see, and NONE of the senior variety.

But there was an incident which almost made me go mom crazy.
We were in the cookie and snack aisle, and this 10 year old girl (looked to be that age) asked her mom for a package of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies.
The mother snapped back, "How much will you work out if I let you have a cookie?!"
Yes, she did stress the 'a', as in a single cookie.

The girl pleaded back, "I will workout for 2 hours mom, please! I just want one cookie mom, please!?"
The mother looked at her and said she didn't believe her, and asked her again how much she would workout for the cookie because it's all fat, nothing good can come of a cookie, and she will not let her have a single solitary one if the daughter was not going to work it off.
The daughter said, "Fine mom, I'll workout for 3 hours. I'll do laps around the neighborhood, I'll do laps in the pool, and do 100 sit-ups. Please mom, I really just want one cookie. Please. I swear mom, I'll workout till you tell me I can stop, please mom!"

The mother said no, final answer, was not going to allow her daughter to become "fat".
I thought the girl was going to cry.
She put her head down, said please one more time, and the mother gave her the look of death.
It was only then that the girl dropped it, but I swear she looked like she was going to cry.

Now, I'm not one to get in other people's business with their kids at the store, but this girl was about 10 years old, was nothing but skin and bones, and the mother was the same.
I could see her breast bone through her shirt type of skinny.
I have no idea if the girl is a sports player or is studying to become an actress or something like that, but clearly this mother was imposing her weight issues onto her daughter who was way too skinny anyway.
The both of them looked like little skeletons walking through the store.
Everything they had in their cart was labeled organic, soy milk, fruits, veggies, no meat or cheese, no cereals, and no breads.
Nothing but ultra healthy, and all this girl wanted was a single cookie.
I felt bad, really bad.
I said to Sebastian after they left the aisle that the mother clearly has issues with food and she's pushing her eating disorder onto her daughter.
Its gonna blow up in her face someday.
Either the girl becomes seriously anorexic and dies, or becomes a bullemic and starts binging and purging as a way to get a cookie, or she goes the total opposite and becomes food obsessed and becomes an overeater and puts on 200 pounds.
But it really just made me angry.
I wanted to say something ya know?
Like what the freaking hell woman, your daughter is wasting away right in front of your super skinny eyeballs, let her have a freaking cookie every now and then. It won't kill her, but starving her and denying her, and forcing extreme workouts on her just might.
This girl was really just a twig. I could see every bone in her arms, her legs, her neck and back.
It's truly disgusting when you can see the ribcage on both the front and back.
I felt like opening up the package of Chips Ahoy cookies (buy 1 get 1 free!) and just handing one to her, tell her to eat it, enjoy it, and not to worry about it.

I never tell the boys what they can or can't eat.
I don't push my emotional over eating issues on them.
I buy a lot of healthy foods, I make well balanced meals, but I also buy snacks like cookies.
They usually just eat 2 or 3, and that's all they want.
Those 2 packages of cookies will last a month or longer.
Mark isn't big on sweets anyway, he's more of a meat and potatoes kinda kid, hot wings, chicken, steak, stuff like that.
Sebastian knows his limits too, they know when to stop eating on their own, and I do not ever discuss my food problems with them.
I know I have issues, I always have had issues with food, but those belong to me and it's not right for a parent to push our issues, especially with food, onto our kids.
Anyway, it just made me mad.

Then we came home, we put everything away, and Sebastian started playing Rock Band.
Now I don't know who did it, but when the game started it sounded like we had a Bose home theater system hooked up in here.
It was like super loud, OMG loud, and everyone was scrambling trying to find the remote to turn the tv down.
I love the game and the music in it, but holy crap that was loud!
The boys were of course, laughing at me freaking out trying to find the remote or the right button on the front of the tv to turn it down, but dammit man, there's good loud and then just holy hell I think the tv is gonna explode loud.