No Longer

No longer will I look scornfully upon you when I notice your child walking down the street wearing only one flip flop. Maybe your daughter just tripped on her left flip flop, took it off and used her teeth to try to “fix” the problem, thus creating a new problem – a completely unwearable piece of footwear. And maybe you were only a block or so away from your car anyway so it just made more sense to walk back to the car with her one shoe-less than to really address the problem on the street with four other children in addition to the one-shoe-wonder walking down the street.
No longer will I assume you are a disrespectful food addict when I watch you sneak a granola bar/graham cracker/ cookie/ candy bar/ fruit roll up/ milkshake/ five course meal during a church service/ theatre performance/ meeting/ class/ study/ funeral. Maybe you had no time for breakfast between the morning mayhem of feeding your many small children, giving a loopy overgrown puppy his morning meal, dressing ten legs and ten feet and ten arms and being sure your bag was loaded for every potential disaster a day away from the safety of your home could bring. Maybe your lunch was a half eaten slice of apple and lick of brownie batter.

No longer will I secretly laugh at you when I watch you fall asleep during a children’s theatre performance. Maybe your head is sinking over onto your son’s head because you stayed up too late talking on the telephone to a friend from another state. Maybe your eyes have been blinked ten minutes too long because your infant son decided his regularly scheduled wake time needed an hour and a half earlier than usual morning call. Maybe that one night is reflective of how several weeks have been of trying to do too much too late too often.