Mom manners

Every once in a while, a social situation arises that requires more than just average manners: It requires mom manners, that extra level of balancing politeness with assertiveness. Jellybean had a (thankfully short) bout with croup last week, and it might have been avoided had I been willing to trample on some "mom" social graces.

The girls and I were at the library last week for our weekly story time. It was spring break, so it was more crowded than usual. After the story, we sat down at a play table that had these way cool blocks on it. We were doing some serious stacking and building, and another mom and her two older kids came to the table to get in on the action. We happily slid some blocks their way.

Less than a minute passed before the girl, who I would peg at 4 or 5, began to cough. She did not cover her mouth, and in fact, with the table being pretty small, her coughs actually hit Jellybean and me in the face. I thought, "Oh, next time she coughs, she'll remember to cover her mouth." Wrong. More than 20 coughs into it, neither she nor her mom made any mention or effort to cover the girl's mouth. (I wasn't thrilled, and I was even less thrilled that shortly after the other kids' arrival, my girls had about 10 blocks between them of a 62-piece set. But I'm not writing about sharing -- that's for another day.)

I am not a germophobe by nature. But, I am pretty practical and know that coughs that hit you in the face are definitely sending something your way -- infectious or not. I had three choices in the moment, all of which had consequences:

1. Make my girls drop the blocks and walk away to play something else. Consequence: My kids are upset (potentially loudly so -- in the library!) and don't get to play, as a result of someone else's negligence. Next option.

2. Ask the little girl to please cover her mouth. Judging from her verbal ability and dexterity, she was old enough to know better and could effectively do so. Consequence: Asking/ordering someone else's kid to do something is not the most polite thing to do. What else?

3. Ask the mother to have her daughter cover her mouth when she coughs. Consequence: Offending the mom, being rude and telling her how to handle her kids. Could be ugly.

So, what did I do? I did nothing. When we were done playing, I took the girls straight to the bathroom and we washed our hands.

A few nights later, when I was up cradling Jellybean in my arms at 1:30 a.m. while she barked like a seal, I couldn't help but think of that instance. It's no guarantee she caught croup from that little girl, but there was no exposure from anyone we know, including preschool.

From now on in a situation like that, rude shmude. I'm looking out for my kids, and if I make someone mad who I'll never see again, so be it!