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I don't know how it is with your children, but I've noticed that my kids often behave in unpredictable Jekyll and Hyde ways when in public. One day they will be as good as can be, causing heads to turn, and strangers to comment in pleased tones about how well-behaved and sweet they are; then the next day heads turn in altogether different ways, and everyone gives you a wide berth, hoping against hope that whatever is wrong with YOUR kids that day won't rub off on theirs.

On Monday, for instance, I had a dentist appointment at 4:00, which meant I had to pick L. up at 3:00 and take both kids with me. Normally I don't schedule anything for after school, as it almost always ends in disaster. After-school time is just not a good time for L., and if we deviate in any way out of the norm during the week, then everything comes crashing down, and homework doesn't get done. It's that bad. But, for some strange reason, L. likes going to my dentist. I have the world's best hygienist, and she loves my kids. Her face lights up when she sees them. She spreads out a soft, fleecy blanket on the floor for them to sit on. She even brings them crayons and coloring pages. They sat there on Monday, not a peep out of them, stretched out on the blanket as if they were at the beach, happily coloring and reading. I, of course, was not nearly as relaxed, but at least the kids were having fun. The other hygienists and dentist people kept poking their heads into our area to remark on how sweet and wonderful my kids are.

They ARE wonderful! I thought to myself, my mouth full of that yucky, pasty, tooth-cleaning stuff they use. My kids are GREAT! And I felt my heart swell with that maternal pride you get when other people are publicly doting on your offspring.

Then on Wednesday, L. had a half day at school and I seized the opportunity to take both kids to get haircuts. We're leaving for an out-of-town wedding tomorrow, and the kids have been looking shaggy lately. But from the minute L. got in the car yesterday, I knew the outing was doomed. I'll fast-forward over the hellacious car ride there, and go straight to our noisy and dramatic entrance into the haircut place. L. insisted that T. get her hair cut first, so he could play (he HATES haircuts), and thus postpone the inevitable. Really, if you're going to be subjected to something unpleasant, then of course it's only fair to have your little sister go through it first. But the haircut people were ready for both kids at once, and we risked losing our slot if we waited. When I tried to pull a rapidly-falling-apart L. close so I could explain this to him he jerked his head away and, in the process, neatly slammed the top of it into the bottom of my jaw.

To say I saw stars would probably be an understatement.

It was an accident, of course, but as I sat in a chair, a baggie of ice under my chin and the concerned haircut people clucking around me like mother hens, I could tell that everyone else in that place had given me that wide berth I mentioned before. I felt terrible--for me and for L.--although I have to confess that at first I mainly felt sorry for ME. But it never feels nice to be Hyde-like. I know I feel badly about myself when I'm in a bad mood and I grouch and fuss around the house at the kids and at Scott, and they steer clear from me, giving ME the wide-berth treatment.

In the end the haircuts were over and we left the place, my jaw throbbing, but my kids dancing ahead with lollipops in their hands and brand-new, shiny haircuts. My kids are wonderful, and they are great, but they are NOT wonderful and great all of the time; sometimes they can be downright horrible. They are, as all of us are, just humans--fallible individuals in their own right, prone to fits of temper and unhappiness, lashing out at those they love best in the world, because they know just how much we love them, and just how wonderful we really and truly know they are.