Leigh Ann writes Genie In A Blog, a hysterical documentation of her life with twins plus one. She makes being a mom of multiples look So. Darn. Easy. Like, when she demonstrated the way to get awesome pictures of them! And how easy it is to take them places in the heat of an Austin summer! I feel like I’ve told her a dozen times already that she deserves a medal. Because SHE DOES.

She doesn’t know this yet, but I kind of think we’re kindred spirits….her post, about herself in social situations sounds an awful like lot me. Except I don’t like beer (don’t hold it against me).

Thanks for stopping by, Leigh Ann!

I judged someone the other day. I know. Terrible of me.

I really try not to judge, or at least I try to keep my judgements to myself. I’m one of those annoying people who’s always giving others the benefit of the doubt. If an employee’s performance is less than stellar at a store, I chalk it up to a bad day. I’ve been there — retail can suck the life out of you. If someone speeds past me and cuts me off on the highway, I say, “Wow, he must have somewhere important to be.” Like his wife had better be in the backseat with a baby head practically sticking out of her skirt.

This drives my husband completely mad. And while I don’t always convince myself, believing the best in people makes me feel better than assuming the worst.

But as the woman sauntered across the pavement towards us at the water park last week and claimed the table next to ours, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and make a disgusted face behind my sunglasses. I focused on all of her features: the aging face, the dry, brittle hair, and most pointedly the cigarette dangling in her left hand, its smoke instantly infiltrating our lunch spot and making my nose twitch. I gave my husband The Look as they claimed the table next to ours. He shrugged the “It’s a Free Country” shrug.

I absolutely abhor smoking. I have smokers in the family, and they are well aware of this. I grew up in a smoke filled house, my clothes and hair always carrying the scent, an embarrassment as I walked the halls at school or went to a friend’s for a sleepover. In college I eventually stopped bringing my laundry home and envied my dorm friends whose blankets and quilts reminded them of home. As a child, I begged my mom to quit, and she tried on and off, but the addiction is just too powerful over her. As an older teen and now even as an adult, I admit I’ve given up.

I view smokers as weak. This could go for anyone with a serious addiction, but fortunately I don’t have experience with any other type. It baffles me that someone could continue to do something that makes them hack and cough, surrounds them with stink, and oh yeah kills them. I don’t give a rat’s ass about so and so who smoked until they were 96 years old and they were just fine they were NOT  fine. No one who fills their body with those types of poisons is “fine.”

I didn’t want these people sitting next to us. I couldn’t make them move, and to be honest, I wasn’t planning on moving myself, but I sure was planning to complain about it when we were out of earshot. I’m passive aggressive like that.

As we finished our lunches and started cleaning up, my girls were all getting anxious to get back in the water, and between their shouts and pleas and the roar of the nearby wave pool, I didn’t quite catch when the woman said something in my direction. I glanced over at her. “I’m sorry?”

“I said you have a beautiful family,” she repeated, nodding at my four year old twin girls with their pink swimsuits showing off their dark olive skin and their brown curly ponytails cascading down their backs, and my two year old with her magnetic personality and shorter, lighter brown curls framing her face. I mean, the lady had a point.

My face softened. “Oh, thank you,” I answered, the compliment warming my heart. She nodded and smiled back, then did a double take at my identical girls in their identical pink swimsuits and gasped.

“Are they twins???”

“They are,” I replied, continuing to tidy up our table as the kids begged to go swim. This question has never bothered me like it does some twin parents. Two kids who look exactly alike are kind of magnets for attention.

“Oh!” The woman waved her hand and shook her head like this was just too much adorableness. (She’s right)

“My daughter just had twins! They’re three months old.”

Aaaaaand she had me. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for another twin mom/dad/grandma/anyone. I know how lonely it can seem as a twin parent when no one around you can really relate to your double infant situation. Having multiples is one of those things that instantly connects people with an invisible badge of honor. I know what you’re going through, we silently nod to each other.

I was torn. I wanted to sit down and talk to her about how things were going with her daughter, give my condolences that yes, that is a very difficult time, but she will sleep again! But my kids and husband had already taken off towards the water, and I knew I needed to be there to help even out the kid to adult ratio in the rough wave pool.

After a few more brief exchanges, I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. I gave her a heartfelt congratulations, along with The Nod of twin recognition, and headed off to rejoin my family.

Throughout our day we continued to see the woman and her teens on various water slides, in the lazy river, and sharing ice cream and funnel cakes at their neighboring table. Whereas before I had only seen her as her unpleasant vice, her weakness, I now saw her as a mom enjoying a day with her kids.

I saw her as a person.

Follow along with Leigh Ann at Genie In A Blog, Facebook, and Twitter.