a true story about belonging
The Cart That Was Just Standing There
A stranger pulls the cart out of her hands in the middle of the store, and my daughter just stops moving.
the realization
I fixed her manners in four seconds and left her standing there alone. What actually helped was going back and telling her plainly what I saw happen, then giving her something to hold again.
It was a cart nobody was touching. Sitting at the end of the aisle, empty, wheels turned in. Mia walked over and put both hands on the bar like she'd been assigned it. She's three. Anything standing still belongs to her.
have you ever felt this way too?
Then a woman came back for it and pulled it out of her hands. Not mean, just fast. And Mia didn't cry. That's the part I keep thinking about. She just stopped moving. Hands still up in the air where the bar had been.
There was a stranger watching, so I picked the wrong person to defend. Say sorry, Mia. You know it wasn't yours. She said it. The manners got fixed in about four seconds. She stayed gone. Eyes down, feet planted, that little body that had been running the whole store now completely still. And I turned my back on it and kept shopping, because I'd already handled it, right?
I made it about ten feet. Then I went back and got a cart of our own and pushed it over to her. It got pulled out of your hands, I said. You didn't take it. It was just standing there. This one is ours. Do you want to steer, or should I push? She grabbed the bar. Nobody asked her to do that. Her hand wasn't empty anymore.
what I found myself saying
"It got pulled out of your hands. You didn't take it."
"It was just standing there. You didn't know."
"This one is ours. Do you want to steer, or should I push?"
