who's in charge around here?

Today as I stood in an unreasonably slow check-out line at a clothing store in the mall, I had the chance to observe an unruly two-year-old boy, his older brother, and their mother. And by unreasonably slow, I mean 45 minutes, so there was plenty of time to observe.

The little boy was cute as could be for about a minute and a half. But less so for the remaining 43 and a half minutes, during which he repeatedly:

laid face-down on the floor, while his mom tried to drag him into standing up by pulling on the hood of his coat, which he simply squirmed out of and laid back down;

yelled "MOM! HEY MOM!" and "NO!" as loud as he possibly could;

kicked his older brother, who gave a warning scream for him to stop, then slapped him when he kicked again;

stole his brother's hat and threw it as far as he could;

and wandered out of his mother's reach so he could run circles around the clothing displays and be chased by his brother, who had been sent by his mother to bring him back to the line.

So after 30 minutes of the rest of us women in line muttering things like, "if that was MY child..." and "My momma would've killed me for that," and "are you KIDDING me?" the kid wandered off farther than before, and was gone for longer than before.

We started glancing around for him. More minutes go by, and he doesn't come back. The mother FINALLY notices he hasn't come back yet and sends big brother to go get him. Big brother comes back and says he can't find the little one. She is unconcerned. Completely.

Then in walks a grandmother-type woman, struggling to hold the boy who is kicking her, saying, "Whose boy is this?!" We all point to the mother. The grandmother says, "Do you know where I FOUND him? He walked right outta this store and started down the hallway alone. ALONE. And you know what else? When I picked him up, he yelled at me to put him down, and honey, I never let a CHILD tell ME what to do. So here."

Still seemingly unconcerned, and almost without a word, she took the boy in her arms and held him most of the rest of the time in line. While he reached over her shoulder and commenced swiping and tossing the brother's hat.

Now, I'm not a mother, and I know that you don't win every battle every time. But kidnapping prevention seems an important one to win.