Being a stay at home mom has its perks. One of my favorite things is being able to run errands during the week when it’s less crowded, which is especially nice during the holiday season.

One of our errands this week brought us (me and my four year old son) to the post office. I don’t know what it is about the post office, but my kids do not like it and tend to behave badly there. I thought that by going there early in the day with only my son that it would be better this time.

Starting out positive, I let him push the buttons to open the doors. Immediately when we walked in the door he started whining.

“I want to go home!” he started.

“C’mon, honey, the wait is not long at all. Let’s look at this Charlie Brown packaging over here. Where’s Snoopy?” I offered, trying to keep him somewhat entertained.

He wasn’t buying it….any of it! Fortunately, the wait was quite short, and the postal employee was very kind and understanding. She offered to give me a candy cane for him, but I said I didn’t want to reward his whiny behavior.

“I want to leave now,” my son repeated.

Just as I was finishing up at the counter, a sweet old lady comes up behind me and says,

“Don’t worry. I have an 81 year old at home that still does that!”

I laughed, agreeing, “Well, they can be grumpy at any age, right?!” It was awesome!

This is not the first time that an elderly woman has brightened my day while running errands with kids. I wrote about another time, when my kids were much younger, here.