Picture Perfect......and Behind the Scenes

Here's what I wrote back in August: I've been thinking lately about our stories and our pictures and what we choose to share or not share with others. I notice that many pictures out there in social media portray the most beautiful parts of life. And that's okay. It's nice to highlight the lovely and focus on what is beautiful. But sometimes, I look at those pictures and wonder if there's more to the story.

At the time I shared this post.

So here we go again. I'll show you a lovely picture, where all is wonderful and calm. Then I'll share with you the real story of what happened just before or after the picture was taken. 

....................................................

You guys. A miracle happened yesterday. We were EARLY for story time at the library. Yes, you read that right. Not only were we on time (instead of flying in about 10 minutes late, and getting seats in the way back where you can hardly see or even hear the story). No friends. We weren't even just on time. We were EARLY.

This was no less than a Thursday miracle. Do you know what it takes to get five kids out of the house, most of whom aren't fully independent yet? It takes a miracle. We are rarely on time for anything.

We had to actually wait, at story time, for the lady to bring out the carpet squares and the name tags. We hung out in the parent chairs, as seen in this picture and eventually made our way to the front row. That's the choice you have, when you arrive, FIRST, thank you very much.

I mentally patted myself on the back. Look. At. Us. We have got our stuff together this week. Well, today at least. Or, this hour at least.

Story time was great and if I only posted the above picture with a capture, "Early for story, just another Thursday", you might think we really do have our stuff together. But that wouldn't tell the whole story.

 Because after story time, things started to disintegrate. Fast. One child got heavily stuck on finding a "mickey mouse book" (God bless the librarian who scoured the shelves finding the very last one available). Then, they boys wanted to go down the snack bar for apple juice which, for a variety of reasons, just was not going to work out today. I said "no" to getting apple juice.

This did not go over well. One of my sweet boys completely, momentarily lost his ever loving mind. Tantrum city.

We got off the main floor elevator and while everything else was pin drop quiet, my child could be heard screaming, "But I wanted apple juice!!!!!!!!!!!"

People were looking.

I however, had my eyes set on the door. One step at a painfully slow time, we made it to the doors. I could see our mini van parked just outside. We were almost home free. It wouldn't be long until we were in the van, and on our way home.

Only, as we walked through the doors, alarms started going off. Let me say that again, ALARMS, STARTED GOING OFF, at the library.

Apparently I hadn't check our books out properly. I thought about just making a run for it and never looking back. Or, dropping the books first, then running. But instead I looked in my periphery and could see concerned librarians motioning me over. And so we went back and over to the counters. And a certain 3.5 boy kept on tantruming.

And people kept staring.

"Did you even check these out??" she asked accusingly.

"No, I was actually trying to steal Pete the Cat." (okay so that's just what I said in my head). In real life I tried to hold back tears and said, "Yes I did check them out but maybe amidst everything going on, I did it wrong"

This is the point where I turn to search for the hidden cameras because maybe just maybe I'm on  candid camera.

Nope, this is really just my morning,

Finally, we properly checked out our books, waved goodbye to the library and made it to the van. Eventually, we all re-calibrated and life was smooth again.

And you know what? Darn it all. We were still EARLY to story time. We'll always have that.