What's your secret?!

Maybe it was my upbringing, but I never understood how some parents could let their kids run around stores and be little hellions. Don't get me wrong, our kids sometimes act up but never to the point that I want to sell them on Craigslist. Recently we were at the pharmacy getting Hunter's medicine, it was taking much longer than I had thought it would and I had seven of the nine with me. I decided we would go look at the toys, they knew we weren't going to get any so there wouldn't be any hurt feelings when we walked away empty handed. As we were looking at the toys an older couple came over and asked the usual questions-are they all yours, how many sets of twins, and so on. They then asked what my secret was because my kids were so well behaved. Honestly, I'm not sure. I think they just caught us on a good day, but as I thought about it aside from one time when Brooke was two and throwing a fit in Target we never really had a meltdown in public. I guess they realized I wasn't against leaving my kids behind-I walked about 5 feet away and could see her but she couldn't see me. There's not really a secret to controlling this many kids though, you have to figure out what works with each kid individually even though they're siblings the same punishment is rarely used for all of them. With that being said, our kids are five million times more well behaved in public than they are in our house and honestly I'm completely fine with that, but it makes it even funnier when someone walks up to me and asks my secret. As much as I would love to say I have the secret for perfect parenting it's very far from that, but I'm glad it looks like we have it together because when I get home I constantly feel like I'm failing as a parent, so to the couple who stopped us at the pharmacy thank you so much. It means the world to me.