One parenting crisis a day

Only one, that's all I'm allowing myself.
Today I finally had to face the "we're going to run away from you in the grocery store, giggling and laughing at the top of our lungs, round the corner, out of your sight, and not stop when you tell us to, then scream because you won't buy us a toy" behaviour.
I had the experience of having to try to get both, each, of them to look at me and listen to me, to get them to hear that it was because I loved them that I didn't want them out of my sight, etc. All the words that we wish we never had to say, but in this world, definitely need to. And this, of course, just made the screaming more intense.
It got worse: I finally bundled Skibo into the grocery cart, and Boo onto my shoulders, to much screaming and complaining: woman walked around the corner, saw my plight, and asked if they were my grandchildren, and did I need any help.
Clearly, I had let them get so totally out of control that they couldn't be my own children! I tried to explain that it was a tantrum about not getting a toy, etc.... and walked away wishing the floor would swallow me.

A few minutes later, though, now with Boo in the cart and Skibo on my shoulders, now happier and behaving nicely, I ran into the woman again. This time, as she asked "did you end up giving in?", I could hold my head up high and mouth the words "no, I didn't!"

Yours, playing the stern parent,
N.