Home Cooked Thoughts

So, I can no longer promise that I’ll be “back” and posting entries from now on, because I have obviously proven that it is not going to happen.  But, today I need to vent and I am sure it is due mostly to the raging hormones that have taken over my body as a result of this impending delivery of Kollasch Child #2.

Here’s the situation: I work in a church office that also houses a social ministry office that assists the needy (of any faith) from our community.  Today there is a certain client of theirs who has been up here repeatedly over the last year or two and today she has come with her children.  The office is not able to continue helping her and she is most unhappy about it and has chosen to yell and holler and rant & rave into her cell phone while her two children (a young girl carrying her infant baby brother) follow her around with blank faces.

Here’s why I need to vent: the children!  Why do this is front of your children?  I do understand needing help – most of us struggle and can sympathize with the panic of “how am I going to get through the day without …” but do we share that stress with our children and do we scream and act up if we don’t get what we want?  I wanted to take the kids under my arm and walk them away but they’re not mine and am I inappropriate to judge their mother for her behavior?

I left the office to get some food (an act I felt immediately guilty for) and cried in my car for the children.  I realize it’s my hormones getting the best of me, but what I’d really like to do is shake that dear woman and ask her why she’s behaving in such a manner in front of the two beings she should be protecting from the stress.  My family struggled when we were kids, truly struggled for many years, and I can honestly say that none of us stressed the family situation.  We knew we didn’t have things other kids did, but we didn’t realize it was because we couldn’t … we just figured it was because we didn’t need anything more.  And we didn’t.

Some may ask why we didn’t just help this woman, but there in a fine line between assistance and enabling.  I look forward to the day when I am comfortable with the state of my own mortgage and can walk up to someone who needs something and hand it to them.  For now, I will have to resort to crying and praying and venting to my beautiful husband who also had a hard afternoon.

I wish hormones resulted in laughter and comfort as opposed to the tears, stress, discomfort, hot flashes, and such … ho-hum.