May I Have Your Attention Please

Getting the attention of someone can be a little more difficult that you might think

I suffer from migraines. I HATE them. All I want to do is curl up in a ball, get to a dark room and go to sleep. Don’t talk to me, don’t open the door, don’t call or text me.

Sometimes, it’s not possible to get into your perfect shell to recover from a terrible migraine.

On a crisp, fall day in 1997, the less-than-perfect circumstances for a very inconvenient migraine presented themselves.

I had no idea the traffic would be that bad

On this day, I developed a horrendous, debilitating, nauseating headache at work and after a completely futile attempt to curb it with regular, over-the-counter meds, it occurred to me that I was almost certainly going to be sick – very sick.

I told my boss that I just had no choice but to leave and head home. Unfortunately, my job was a full 45 minutes from home. Holding on and trying to keep my lunch from returning while driving home was going to take some fast and furious driving.

Who knew that my hometown had that many factory workers

Since I was leaving work early, I arrived in my hometown earlier than normal on a workday. I. had. no. idea. that. many. people. worked. in. factories.

The factories in town run 24-hour shifts and the daytime employees all clock out at 2:30, the exact time I was hustling back into town get home to get over my out-of-control headache.

I found myself stuck in the middle lane of 5 lanes of two-way traffic. Bumper-to-bumper. Stop-and-go.

I was 2 miles from home.

I might as well have been 50 miles from home. I wasn’t going to get home before the wave of used groceries got deposited somewhere.

In the middle lane of traffic, I couldn’t even pull over. In a panic, I looked all over for a solution to my impending problem.

There it sat.

Take just a moment and try to imagine the sounds I was hearing from inside the car. All at the same time. Just try.

Now, imagine you have worked all day and you are in your car waiting in the typical, normal traffic jam that you are accustomed to when, all of the sudden, the guy beside you, behind you, in front of you or diagonal from you LAYS down on his horn.

Yep. It wasn’t once or even twice that my car horn was used for an unrelenting amount of time. It wasn’t a friendly little “beep beep” either. I was harsh and hateful. Probably 6 or 7 times.

The immediate reaction to all those stranded in non-moving lanes was anger and righteous indignation and then it was shortly replaced with repulsion.

Of all the ways to get attention…

Parents, if I can take this stupid little embarrassing story and make some kind of point – it is this. Do not force your children to puke in a playmate cooler while honking a car horn while stopped in traffic in order to get your attention.

We taught our kids, from an early age, to come up to us and place their sweet little hand on our shoulder or leg and wait. If we are in the middle of something or finishing up a conversation, that little bit of pressure from those little hands is a reminder that someone special is waiting for your attention. We, as parents, to acknowledge that we know they are there, simply place our hand on theirs.

So, we finish up whatever we are doing and give them OUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. It moved mountains with their trust in us. They KNOW we are listening. They KNOW we care. They SEE that we will get to them and their needs. They ALSO see that when we finish up what we are doing that THEY are not the only people in the world, too. Sometimes kids need to NOT think they are your only priority, but they do NEED to know that they ARE a priority.

Do NOT let it get to the point that they are embarrassing you with the WAY in which they get your attention.