When The Good Samaritan Mom In

Target Saves The Day

It happened.

Those stories you hear about with the mom in Target, or the airport, or wherever, who was saved by a superhero mom when her child was creating the ultimate episode… It happened to me.

I should have seen it coming.

Friday afternoon pick-up, recent teething spell, pouring rain, refusal to get in car seat, screaming the entire way in the car, but I did it anyway. Instead of waiting for Dad to get home for me to make a solo trip to Target, I took my little man with me to grab an online pick-up order. We just needed to make it to customer service, pick up our items and move on.

But Jensen got curious. He started wandering toward the dollar section. And once I had my pick-up in hand, so did I. So many things. So many distracting dollar things.

Jensen found some Halloween toys that lit up when you shook them hard. I showed him how to throw them on the ground to light them up, you know, because who doesn’t like to play in the dollar section at Target. Meanwhile I was browsing scarves and accessories for a birthday party gift the next day. There were probably five items in my hand at this point, plus my purse and my online order bag. I was distracted for too long, though. I turn, Jensen is still there, but he’s not playing with the Halloween toys anymore. He started lining up tortilla holders in the middle of the aisle. Uh oh.

My jerk reaction is to push the line to the side of the aisle so it’s not directly in the middle, so I did, but I knew better than to take drastic measures like suddenly pick them all up, for the fear of that 25 pound ball of fire. I was troubleshooting, but it was too late. The line of tortilla holders grew quickly. It even started to curve.

I actually found it funny at first, caught it on camera and then asked Jensen to help me pick it up, like we always do. Except I put one tortilla holder back on the shelf, and he screamed “no,” that relentless “no” that signals no good is on the way. Uh oh again. At home I could have handled this with my eyes closed – sit down and help him build out the line, walk away, find something distracting and return to the mess later.

But I was in Target – my personal items now on the ground across the way – and Jensen’s control switch was “on.”

I was at a loss on how to turn the situation around without setting off a fire alarm, frantically running out of the store with a kicking, screaming child, and leaving twenty tortilla holders and birthday gifts sprawled on the ground. The customer service people are staring at this odd scene. People are passing by left and right. I felt trapped, overwhelmed and my silent panic must have sent a distress signal across the store.

All of the sudden, at the sound of more full-volume stubborn tantrum-style yells, a magical superhero mom fairy pops around the corner.

It’s like she was policing the area just waiting to save someone. She was so sweet and friendly, patient and calm as a cucumber. Experienced, if you will. She immediately warmed up to Jensen and started whipping out productive play and positive reinforcement strategies. Skipped no steps, even on the floor in Target with a total stranger.

I was certain she was about to flee the scene after realizing her first three minutes of color matching and distractions were going nowhere. I was mentally preparing to be back at square one, but nope, she stayed with me the whole time. Eventually the tide started to turn. Somehow she got stacking going – a 3-4 foot tall stack of tortilla holders. And once all stacked, we were able to transition to putting them all back on the shelf. This probably lasted a collective 10 minutes, and she didn’t leave me until she knew I was good to go. 

I could of cried from gratitude. Actually, I think I did. We even managed to make it to the checkout line after that and all.

So thank you good Samaritan superhero Target mom lady.

I survived – we survived – and I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for all of your words of encouragement, words of wisdom, love, patience, kindness and for saving the day. And thank you to ANY person who has ever stopped to help a seemingly helpless mom who is all on her own. Your graciousness is a blessing to us more than you’ll ever know.