Mind Your Manners

WARNING: This is a good old fashioned mom rant. Don't keep reading if you don't want to hear me complaining about the kids behavior! Come back tomorrow when I will be co-hosting a super fun blog hop!!

I'm a stickler for good manners. Children and adults with bad manners really upsets me. I am on the kids all the time about saying "please" and "thank you", opening the doors for others, no loud burps, using inside voices and being kind to others. My biggest pet peeve when it comes to manners is them asking for stuff when they arrive at someone's house. In my opinion, you do not ask for anything, you wait to be offered. I was raised this way and am trying to instill this in my kids. Of course, children don't always do as they are told!

On Saturday mornings, I drop off Amberly at her art class and run errands with the boys. An hour or so later, we drive back to art class to pick Amberly up. Now, Amberly's teacher has a little treasure box that she fills with pencils, stickers and candy that she offers to the children after classes. As the boys and I were getting out of the car, I warn them "You go inside, sit down and wait for 5 minutes while I get Amberly and Don't You Dare ask for anything!" Same warning they receive every Saturday. I get my usual "Yes we know!" and up the stairs we go. We walk into the art class and as I am paying, both boys go "Can we have treasure?" I look back and give them the mom stare. I know you know what the mom stare is. Well they ignored me. Katelyn (Amberly's teacher) tells them that she is all out of treasure. At this point, all three of them get up, walk behind Katelyn's desk and open the treasure box to make sure there wasn't any treasure. I watched all of this like if it were happening in slow motion. I was so embarrassed.

At this point, I was so angry, I couldn't see straight. I said "OK well thank you, it's time to go!" in my nicest voice while staring my children down hoping I could make them burst into flames. We step outside and "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS?" came out from deep inside. It was a roar. They looked at me scared since they knew what  they had done. They knew I was angry and there was no going back from this one. We rode home in complete silence. When we got home, I sent everyone up to bed (mind you, it was like 2pm). I didn't want to see them, hear them, nothing! I was furious! They were up there for hours and I didn't care!

Do I think I overreacted? No! I have pretty simple rules. I repeat them over and over and over and over I have nice, well-mannered children. Everywhere I go, people comment about how well-behaved they are. They aren't perfect. They argue and fight. They yell and cry. They can do those things at home. When we are out in public, they know they have to behave. It will be a long time before I get over what happened on Saturday. Everyone that has heard this story has laughed at me. Well, first they are in shock that they kids would do something like this, then they laugh. This might become a classic, you know those stories that come up when you and your siblings are adults and want to annoy your mother at dinner. Yup, one of those!

Are you done laughing at me yet? Are a stickler for good manners? Have your children done something like this to you? Please share!