Since Abe was actually here this weekend, we had a really easy day just catching up from all of our previous, hectic weekends. I went for a run, dropped Mary off at a birthday party in Mapleton, took Ammon to the library, checked out some books, and made some taquitos for dinner.
Abe went to pick up Mary from the party and took Ammon with him. He hadn’t actually eaten much all day, and so he decided to swing into Wendy’s. Unfortunately the drive-thru was really long and Ammon was asleep, so Abe just parked, ran in, ordered a couple burgers, went to the restroom, picked up his food and came back out.
When he came out there were people standing by the car and Mary told him that they had called the police on Abe. The people confronted Abe, who just didn’t respond and instead waited for the police officer to come.
When the police officer arrived, Abe explained the situation, and the police officer said he didn’t see anything wrong with what Abe had done.
After it was all done, Abe called me and told me what happened. He wasn’t upset at the people who had called the police, but he was stressed from the interaction. I will tell you right now, the last thing Abe needs right now in his life is more stress. He is basically stress incarnate because of his job, and I was terrified this would push him over the edge into panic and depression.
To help Abe, we all played basketball (I just lifted Ammon up repeatedly to the basket) and I took the young kids on an errand so Abe could decompress and nap.
Then in the evening we stayed up late doing a puzzle together. It was fun, and I seriously hope it helped a little.
I have two takeaways from this. One is that I won’t leave my kids in the car for even 5 minutes anymore. We do have laws to protect parents in these situations, but still. The other is I am going to try to do something positive and HELP the next time I feel judgmental of someone else’s parenting. If I can’t or won’t help, then I have no excuse to judge. (I have no excuse anyway, but this is a great reminder of that.)
Our puzzle, which had awesome puzzle shapes and such fun colors:
