Dressed Down In Whole Foods

So after taking Max to playgroup (and this day started off ok, we left the house, he suggested going to cafe umbria to get mommy coffee) went to clubhouse, playd with our new friend Kathryn and her daughetr Tilly, Fleur and Nathan and some new faces. At about 11:45 Max started to get really whiney and I said lets go to whole foods to get some lunch. Immeadiately he demanded that I carry him (he weighs 35 pounds) and we were 5 blocks from home. because we had gone such a short distance I left the stroller at home, so max could get some exercise.

So I carried Max and he was crying and when we got to the block of our apartment, I told him that he had to walk, he started throwing a tantrum, but against my better judgement I took him to Whole Foods anyway. Once inside he threw himself on the ground screaming and crying and suddenly a woman came up to me and launched into a tirade telling me that I am a terrible mother, mentally ill and abusive, and she was calling the police. Needless to say I told her to mind her own business and not tell me how to raise my child or discipline them, but as she just kept yelling at me (with her own 8 year old child in tow in front of 20 people who stopped to watch) it started making me feel bad, and ugly and sad and miserable and really very alone.

I was so embarrassed by being dressed down that I left whole foods out their side entrance, in tears with max now in further tears from this woman yelling at me and walked into our building in the side entrance. I have finally calmed down but I feel horrible.

Maybe I am a bad mother. Abusive. Maybe the woman should have called the police who knows. All I know is I am exhausted and depressed. Of course in the end Max was tired, he grabbed his binky and crawled into bed and is napping.