CTR

This is a long story, as most of my stories are. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, I understand.

This weekend was Labor Day weekend and after church on Sunday we went to Snohomish to visit Grandma Cozette and Aunt Linda and family. We had a great time, but I knew timing would be horrible coming back on the ferry, so we decided to drive around to come back home and stop at Ikea on our way.

Ikea is quite a drive for us, so we don't go very often and when we do we usually eat there too (they have a restaurant). So we shopped for a while, trying to get some fun things for upcoming birthdays and Christmas gifts as well as the last of the back to school stuff. We parked our cart and went to get dinner. Meg was in a bad mood and wanted to feed herself, and made it very clear we were to leave her alone while she ate. Her dinner of choice was, of course, Mac and Cheese. The slimiest thing possible. By the time she was done, she was covered, the floor was covered and the table was covered. Messy, but self confident. Adam and I had dinner too, then shared a wonderful piece of chocolate chocolate cake. Yummy.

We finally make it to the check out desk, and I have to use the self check out counter. One of the things I bought that I thought was $3.99 was $7.99 and I had to have it taken off. So all of this stuff was going back in the cart when I was done scanning. By this time, Meg's mood has not improved and she is in full melt down mode. Holding her isn't working, not holding her isn't working. I actually overheard some guy in the next lane over make some snarky comment about "Some people's kids..." I held my tongue. Our bill comes to about $90.00 and we high tail it out of there.

I schlep my kids across two parking lots, with one screaming and one not paying attention to where he's going and walking into people and finally find my car. She's still screaming, he's tired and his knee hurts. We start unloading stuff into the trunk of the car when we pick up the sling that she wouldn't sit in and find a small glass lamp that hadn't been paid for hiding underneath. {SIGH}

Suddenly he's very concerned about this. He wants to know what we are going to do. We can't take it home, that's not right. He's thinking of solutions, she's still screaming and I am thinking that showing my son the right thing to do is better than explaining it, no matter how hard it can be.

We grab the lamp, the crying baby and the now alert boy and I walk back across two parking lots and back into the store. We again stand in line, wait for the cashier to be available to help us and explain what happened. She says "It's not worth very much. I can't believe you came back." To which my brilliant son responds "We decided to Choose the Right. We believe in being honest."

I hope that he is always able to Choose the Right, even when it is hard. I hope he is able to set a good example for others. I hope he is able to show his integrity always. I hope he can be a good missionary through being a good example. Most of all, I hope he always remember how he felt on the way back to the car when he smiled the whole way back and said "Mom, I like choosing the right."