My tub has once again been defiled. I felt as though I was being a generous soul, letting my children bathe in my private, special place. The place I retreat to each evening and with joy and excitement pronounce "Calgon, take me away!". How can such a place be defiled you may ask? By my son, Bennett - the infamous pooper and non-potty trainer.
This would be the second time such an incident has happened to my tub, by the same person. You would think I would have learned after the first time - but I have proven time and again that I don't learn after the first time. It obviously takes me several attempts to learn the same lesson.
We were just finishing a wonderful bath time this morning. Gavin had the bright idea to include Chloe in the bath with them today since she is getting so big. The only problem is, the only tub in the house that has the capacity to hold her baby tub plus two boys would be mine. I entered into this arrangement unaware of the horrors that were to follow.
The boys were so sweet to help me wash Chloe - of which I'm sure she was doubly grateful. We had some nice bonding time. Then Gavin, ever the idea maker, has another swell suggestion. He says "Bennett, would you like me to wash your hair and you can wash mine?". I'm thinking to myself that this idea will never fly, Bennett is very particular about how his hair is washed. But then, I would be wrong. He joyfully accepted his brother's offer. I should have suspected something would soon go arry with such joyful, positive attitudes so abundant at 8:30 in the morning.
I remove Chloe from the scene and am in the adjoining room dressing her. I can hear Gavin perfectly dictating the explicit instructions on exactly how one washes hair to his brother. Bennett then obediently follows the instructions just stated. Each boy now has perfectly clean hair (so I'm assuming). And no one cried or yelled for help. I could get used to this.
Then comes the 'act' so horrible. I've asked the boys to get out of the tub, wrap up in the towel and stand on the bath mat. I was in the other room putting Chloe down as I was giving these instructions. I then make my way into my bathroom and am welcomed with an odd oder and Gavin pronouncing "Mom, look what Bennett did!". I calmly ask everyone to vacate the premises. I go thru mourning and then proceed to pick up the defiled object out of my tub. Thankfully, Bennett was of sound enough mind to wait until most of the water had already left the tub before he committed 'the act'.
It is now 9:39am. I'm excited to see what lies ahead for the rest of our day.
I have been in the mood to paint my toe nails for quite some time now. I just never seem to get around to it. You know, I do happen to remember to paint them every night around 8 pm. That's just a little too late though if I'd like to keep the paint on my toe nails and not on my bed linens.
So, yesterday afternoon, I got the bright idea to go do it right after the boys woke up from nap time. Now I have two big helpers. I figured I'd just let them do the first coat and I'd do the second. Little did I know that my worldly wise children knew everything about pedicures at such young ages. They insisted on NO help from Mommy. Bennett even showed me that if you hold the bottle almost upside down, the nail polish only drips out slowly - not as fast as I thought it would. Of course we were using red.
Gavin, ever the perfectionist, was wiping the sides of the brush off so much (so as to be extra careful not to drip any polish), that there was nothing left for my toe nails. Of course, Bennett was in charge of holding the bottle for him. The intent there was that the bottle would be held still and in one location. Note to self - NEVER EVER let a very independent two year old EVER hold an open bottle of red nail polish. The boys then started fighting about exactly where the polish bottle should be held and practically forgot that I was there. Thankfully, I still had my wits about me this time of day and was able to mediate the dispute without any raised voice what-so-ever. I would now be the official 'nail polish bottle holder' for each boy. There, that's settled.
After the first toe is completed and I spend much of my time trying to wipe the polish off of my skin, I decided to just let the nail polish fall where it may - I'll just deal with it later. The boys were just so giddy to be 'helping' me - I didn't want them to see me 'fix' their mistakes. I did end up with a tad bit of polish on each nail on my right foot and a little more polish around the toe nail - but hey, it was his first time. There is quite a large learning curve in the pedicure business.
Then comes Bennett's turn. Oh boy! How dare I try to instruct him in the basics of putting the brush in the bottle and taking it out. What was I thinking? He just watched his older and wiser brother finish my right foot, he knows everything he needs to know. Sometimes I just don't think. After he screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOO yap (help) me, mom" while holding onto the brush in one hand and open bottle of red nail polish in the other, I decided it would be advisable to not help him.
He got that tongue action going while he was working ever so seriously on my left foot. His tongue was poking in and out of his mouth without him even knowing. All of my toes were now red. Bennett didn't feel the need to be cautious with the paint. Therefore, all my toes had plenty of red on them.
To give you a visual picture of my beautiful feet at this point, envision a basin of blood and then envision me sticking the entire front part of my foot into it and then repeating. I think I can honestly say that I will probably never have another pedicure like this again - that is unless the boys ask to give me one and then I would be honored - but I'd ask for clear nail polish this time.
We have been very blessed. None of our children thus far, have broken any limbs. But, ironically, we've been to the emergency room too many times to count in the five years of our parenting journey. Of course, once you get there, the child is running around, laughing, jumping, asking a gazillion questions - not acting the least bit sick. That has been our experience. We prefer our children to at least act sick if we've taken up the time of all these nice people in the ER.
Well, what do ya know...Bennett and Gavin were pulling each other around this evening, by their arms. That was an accident waiting to happen. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the room supervising - Chuck was, and to him, that looked like a perfectly normal thing for two little boys to be doing. Enough said. I come running out when I hear Bennett crying and sitting on Daddy's lap.
Chuck said "He's really hurt; I can tell by his cry". Normally Bennett is a very resilient little boy. He falls down and gets right back up. Not tonite. Tonite we couldn't do a thing to get him to feel better. He wouldn't move his arm or wrist and wouldn't let us near it. We weren't sure if he was just enjoying all the extra attention, if he was being stubborn, or if he was truly hurt. After about an hour of "not snapping out of it", we decided the injury was genuine and thought it was time to 'make the trip'.
We decided it would be best to 'tag team'. I was to take the boys to an urgent care facility (since it was 30 minutes after the Doctor's office already closed for the weekend - perfect timing) while Chuck got baby duty. He was to stay home with Chloe and put her bed. Gavin wanted to come with me. I'm not entirely sure it was out of concern for his brother. It might of had something to do with the chance of getting to stay up way past bed time.
On the 30 minute drive to the urgent care facility, while Bennett sat whimpering in the seat behind me, Gavin sat in yet another seat behind him asking me 1001 questions. "Mom, why is the sun so hot? Why can't we go to the sun? How does an oven work? Why? But what makes that part work? Why is our blood blue and red? Why does our blood have oxygen in it? Why doesn't all my blood squirt out of my ant bite? I'm going to be a scientist when I grow up cuz I like to ask alot of questions." Indeed you are my son, indeed you are. That was only a small sampling of the ones I remember. I actually attempted to answer all of them. I'm not sure if Gavin was trying to keep Bennett's mind off his injury or my mind off of Bennett's injury. But either way, he successfully confused me.
Thankfully, it was only Nursemaid's elbow (dislocated) and the Doctor was able to pop it back into place. That is what typically happens when one attempts to yank one's arm out of it's original socket.
Tonight we were sitting down to a lovely dinner of quesadillas. We are ranch maniacs in this family. So all of us had a healthy supply of ranch on our plates to dip our quesadillas into. Evidently, Bennett has a different idea of what 'enough' means. He kept saying he needed more ranch, even though you couldn't see the color of his plate because there was already so much on there. Daddy asked him "what's all that on your plate there, buddy?" to which Bennett replied, very seriously, "sunshine". He won. We all busted out laughing. If you want to get your way, the quickest route is to make everyone laugh. Bennett has figured that one out at a very young age!
Let me just share a little of what my day has been like today...let's see, it started at 5am when Chuck left for work. However, he came back in a minute later to rummage through our bedroom where my dear beloved son, Bennett, was once again sleeping, looking for his 'lost' cell phone. Of course that woke Bennett up (at the time I was unaware that it would be for the rest of the day). HA! What do ya know, it was in his car the whole time! Now Bennett & I are bright eyed and bushy tailed and its only 5:14am. I then spend the next 66 minutes trying to fall asleep to no avail. Bennett too.
"What dat noise in me room?" (that's one of Bennett's funny expressions we love to use whenever applicable). Ah yes, that would be Chloe waking up at 6:18am for no apparent reason. Lovely. This day is already not going how I would have planned. I'm already starting to wonder what kind of lesson God is wanting me to learn here.
So, I successfully run through the still dark house without tripping or falling over any Legos or Rescue Heroes all the way to Chloe's room. I put her paci back in thinking maybe that would do the trick. But before I have a chance to tip-toe out of her room, she vehemently let me know that was not what she wanted. What the heck, I'm already up, I'll just feed her now. So, we go out to the kitchen to make her a bottle when I hear Bennett coming in asking "hey mom, what you doin?", then upon seeing me with his sister he is overjoyed and gives a resounding morning welcome to Chloe "Hey zozie! Hi. Hi. Hi." He then proceeds to tell me that he loves Uncle John and is hungry. I inform him about how happy I am and tell him to get back to Mommy's bed; that he may not get up while its still dark out. That went over like a lead balloon. Now, he's 'too scared' to walk back to my room alone. At this point I'm thinking he's probably not going to fall back asleep - I've just lost all optimism.
I think I finally conjolled him to stay put in my bed with the aid of his Rescue Hero. Now I'm back in Chloe's room feeding my famished child when all of the sudden I hear "Mommy....". I think to myself "now what?". This time it is Gavin. He's calling me to come see him. That means only one thing - he's wet the bed again. I whisper yell back (I don't know why - everyone was awake by now) that I'm feeding Chloe and he'll have to wait or come see me. He doesn't come so I figure it's not too much of an emergency. That is until I finally finish feeding Chloe, put her back to bed, go to see Gavin only to confirm my suspicion. It is now 6:40am.
None of this should have even happened yet. We aren't all supposed to be up until 7am. I've already got 2 hours head start on this day. Inside I'm starting to fume at Chuck. I want to blame somebody for this great start to my day. But then I realize, he had nothing to do with Chloe waking up or Gavin having an accident. Darn. Now I have to take responsibility for my bad attitude. Then it dawns on me: maybe God is trying to teach me that I can still have a good day even if everything goes completely haywire. My happiness isn't dependent on my circumstances....sounds better as a theory, sucks when you have to actually put it into practice.
Gavin then comes and joins me in my bed and our little book club comes to order. Each boy has gone and retrieved a stack of books for me to read. Why not, it's only 7am. However, in my head I can picture the rest of the day and what I had planned and don't see them matching each other. I had planned to take the boys swimming at my parents house. We normally do that while Chloe is taking her afternoon nap, which means Bennett would miss his nap. There was no way in the world I was letting that child miss his nap today - he's been up since 5am! Plan B starts to formulate. If I can leave the house at 8:30am, then maybe we can still swim and get back home in time for naps. A new optimism arises in my heart. I have a plan - let's see if we can follow it.
Chloe wakes up again and eats again and we dash out the door. On the way to the pool we have to make a quick stop at SuperWalmart (that's an oxymoron). I think I set a new record of getting in and out of the store with 3 kids and everything on my list in 15 minutes flat! Plus, we got another chance to work on our 'public manners' and passed with flying colors. Pride swells in my chest. This day is going to be just fine. Everything went according to plan at the pool and we all had a blast. Especially the boys when I let them push me in (that never happens). However, we encounter a little tweak upon trying to leave.
Remember how I explained in my last post about my gentlemen who love to hold doors open for me? Well, Grandma & Grandpa have a very heavy storm door as well as their normal front door. Bennett was graciously holding open the door with all his might leaving me (who was carrying Chloe in the car seat and a large diaper bag) approximately 10 inches to maneuver through to get past him and the storm door. I was ever so careful not to knock him over (accidently, of course). The problem arose after I had locked the front door and was waiting for the storm door to close. Bennet got stuck between the two. Why he didn't move, I have no idea.
After retrieving my son from between two doors we head back home in relative peace and quiet. A little too quiet if you ask me. Bennet is in the back seat dozing off. I cheerfully yell back there to get his attention. There is no way I'm letting him fall asleep in the car on the drive home. He's been up since 5am - a little 20 minute nap is not going to cut it. I ask Gavin to keep his brother engaged, even if that means kindly yelling at him. He agreed a little too enthusiastically. Thankfully Bennett stayed awake long enough for me to bust his lip. Not on purpose of course, we were just horsing around and he ended up bumping his lip on a chair. Poor guy.
All that under my belt and it's only 11am. I wonder what the rest of the day will hold?
What, might you ask, could go wrong at the Post Office? Plenty if you've got me and my three followers along. This was supposed to be a quick trip - in and out in one quick motion. Not. Before we even get out of the car I have to remind Bennett not to stand on the package that we've wrapped ever so delicatley. Then of course, I can't just walk in like any other normal person, nooo, I have to grab the stroller, make sure each child is holding on to opposite sides and proceed with caution. I then become a walking wall that nobody can penetrate. Even when I ask the boys to walk behind me, they still dare not let go of the cart. I can't even count how many times I've run over Bennett's toes with the stroller. I'm sure he thinks that is what happens to everybody when they walk.
And of course, I have two wonderful gentlemen who absolutely love to open the door for mommy, even when those doors are too heavy for them, or there are 17 people all waiting around to get in and out, or even when they push on a door that they are supposed to pull. Then comes the fun part - trying to get thru the door that my gentlemen have opened. They like to open it about 13 inches and then stand there - right in my way. They are so proud to be helping me that I try to squeeze through (stroller and all) no matter how small the opening. In the process I have knocked down my own children several times - then end up blocking the doorway even longer trying to pick them up, comfort them, apologize all while propping the door open with my pinky toe. Granted, I love these teachable moments and I don't see them as inconveniences at all - but I'm not quite sure the 9 people behind me are as interested in my children's teachable moments as I am.
Yes, all those instances mentioned above did happen on the way into the Post Office. Lucky for us there were two separate doors we needed to enter before waiting in line. So each gentleman got his own turn. We make it into the line and wait without much fanfare. Then comes our turn to make our way to the open postal clerk. My barricade and I all maneuver thru a very narrow walkway and make our way to the very last clerk. Each boy then drops off the package that I had him carry and proceeds to do something behind my back.
Unknowingly, I park the stroller right in the middle of the only opening that lets all the other customers out of this narrow walk way. My oversight. All the while my children are still holding on to the cart, but this time they are on the same side - not good. Confusion is starting to set in and everything becomes a blurr for me momentarily. Out of one eye I see my sons holding and hugging each other like they hadn't seen one another in 20 years. Since when does that happen? While the other eye sees the postal clerk who is asking me to fill out a form. Oh boy, I hope I sent my packages to the right place.
Not that the boys were bad or misbehaved, but they were distracting me and not standing as still as a statue without saying a word. I don't know, maybe I have too high of expectations. But I am trying to teach them how to act in public and talking loud and hugging alot is not what I have been teaching. Then Gavin decides to morph into a Rescue Hero and uses the blank wall we are next to as his 'command post' and starts pressing all sorts of imaginary buttons. Of course Bennett follows suit - little Mr. "Me Too". After receiving 'the glare' from me, they both resume their positions on opposite sides of the cart.
Next comes trying to get out of our narrow expanse, go around a corner, thru another set of doors (I can't remember which of my helpers opened this one) and into another area to drop our mail off in the mail slot. We had like 10 envelopes to put in the slot and of course they had to be divided up evenly between both boys. This took about 3 minutes. Not long in the scheme of things but too long to just drop letters thru a slot. Another line starts forming behind us. Thankfully, it has come time to go and we are headed towards the exit.
Bennett insists on opening the door for me but I can see other people trying to enter and are already opening the door. This frustrates Bennett who decides to fall on the ground. Nice. Gavin is still holding his side of the cart, so no one can squeeze past me on his side. Now I have two people holding open two doors. It is wide enough for all of us to fit thru in our usual format. One of the people holding open the door is some kind of Agent. He's got a gun on his belt and dark Raybans on. He looks like he's on 'official business'. That makes me panic and I start grabbing Bennett by the arm to pull him up. Then I run over his foot with the cart again. I'm afraid the FBI agent is going to 'take me in' for slowing down the federal mail or something. As we finally make our way through the doors I thank the men for holding the door open for my circus and hear laughter. I don't know if they were laughing at me or with me (hmmm, but I wasn't laughing, so it must have been at me). At least we're out and headed toward the safety of the van. Another adventure behind us.
I don't know what I was thinking...I probably wasn't, but I let Bennett go diaper-less again. Thinking that maybe now he was emotionally and physically mature enough to put his poopies in the potty where he knows they belong. I know he's ready because he comes and tells me he needs me to change him. I know that's got to be a sign of something. So, after the second time today he comes and tells me that, I tell him in no uncertain terms that this will be the last time - from now on he puts his poopies where they belong.
He went 3 long hours without any accidents this afternoon. Of course I asked him repeatedly if he had to go and of course his answer was no. So, you can imagine our surprise as we are cleaning up the dinner dishes when we see a rather smallish brown mass in the living room. And of course, Bennett is haunched down very close to the vicinity of the mass and looking up like a puppy dog who knows he just got in trouble. Yet, despite the physical evidence, when asked if he knew what that was, Bennett says "nutin" (nothing). So, Chuck asks him "Where did that come from Bennett?". Bennett looks up at the ceiling, around the room and finally points to the door and says "out dare" (there) - meaning outside. Nice try. Thankfully, I was only a bystander in this exchange because I don't know if I could have handled myself as good as Chuck did (without laughing that is).
Chuck proceeded to make him clean it up, much to Bennett's chagrin. He walks away saying "yucky" - maybe we've finally cracked the uncrackable potty trainer.
It is the eve of our 'big trip' to Seattle for a little get-a-way. My Mom was sweet to offer that we spend the night at their house since we have to leave so early to catch our flight the next morning. This is practical for two reasons. One, we don't have to wake and feed all the children at 4am, so that we can get to Grandma & Grandpa's in time to drop off the kids and catch our flight. And two, we don't have to wake Grandpa & Grandpa up at 5am and leave them with three very awake little ones with no intention of going back to sleep anytime soon. So, this was a great idea for all.
However, there was a small little item that Mom 'conveniently' forgot to mention until we headed off to bed. Mom says "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that you might hear our little Mockingbird outside your window at night". We really thought nothing of it...that is, until we couldn't fall asleep. Actually, let me digress and explain the situation a little further.
The boys were sleeping peacefully together in one room while Chloe slept in the pac-n-play in our room. We head off to bed, not heeding the warning that Mom just gave us about our little night 'companion'. We were having a hard enough time trying to be super quiet and tip-toe in the pitch dark so as not to wake our sleeping daughter; then add to that Chuck's attempt to set his watch alarm (a feature which he's never used before but swears it will work and wake us up in time) in the dark. Since I'm very skeptical about the reliability of this little watch alarm, I opt for back-up and grovel around in the dark, ever so quietly of course, looking for the little alarm clock I brought.
You might be wondering why we just didn't set that one in the first place. Well, we would have if it didn't sound like a tornado alert that's trying to wake a whole town. All we wanted was to be conscientious of all those sleeping around us, that we were willing to risk not waking up at all. I actually considered just staying awake all night...little did I know my own prophetic abilities.
Okay, so it's been like 20 minutes and Chuck finally has his little watch alarm set and I have the blow horn set (but under pillows - like that will tone it down). We attempt to fall asleep, only to hear Chuck's little alarm going off. Its only been like, 10 minutes since he figured out how to set it and convinced me that it would work. So, he tries again as I, ever the thoughtful wife, solve his lack of light problem by holding down the snooze bar on the blow horn that glows a pretty blue color.
Ahh, problem solved...now we can get to sleep. Not. Problem number two arises. It is our sweet little Chloe. She is such a fitful, loud, stinky, noisy little sleeper. I think between the two of us, we got up 51 times in a 6 hour time frame to either put her paci back in or look to see if she was awake because it sure sounded like she was.
Simultaneously to the 'thrashing sleeper' (as we so lovingly refer to her), we start to hear a beautiful melody right outside the window. It actually sounded like the bird was chirping into a microphone. The melodies were beautiful and unique, but not something to put you to sleep.
I dozed off a few times long enough to wake up to dig the blow horn out from under the pillow to check the time. Come to find out, it was only 30 minutes later than the last time I did it. Then comes the hard part, trying to block out the 'thrasher', the bird/owl, and the fear of not waking up in time to try to lull myself back to sleep for another 12 minutes before the whole cycle starts all over again.
If I've not learned anything else during my 5 short years of motherhood, I learned this: be specific with your children. I say this because I guess in the past I've taken for granted that my children think like me. I am no longer under that assumption. For instance, when Gavin was 2, I found teeth marks on my armoire. I asked him what happened there because it looked as if someone just up and bit my armoire and tried to take a chunk out of it. Come to find out, that's exactly what happened. He responded "you never told me not to bite the armoire". Well, he did have a point. I couldn't argue (I have a feeling he's going to be a lawyer when he grows up). So, I clarified that under no circumstances do we ever bite furniture - even armoires.
Well, obviously I still haven't learned my lesson. This morning I gave each of the boys a small pad of paper and a pen to run a muck with. I thought I had covered all my bases on this one. We already know not to write on the walls or the table or our bedspreads, you know, things like that. However, I failed to mention body parts. The kids had run back to their room to play with their new prized possession (pen & paper) and were quiet - so I was taking advantage of that and spending time with Chloe.
Then all of the sudden Gavin comes running out to show me what he drew - on his foot. He said, "Look mom, I drew a dog. And come look at Bennett, I drew a dog on his face too". Ahhh, great! I should have known something was up when they were perfectly quiet for 10 minutes. Gavin's artwork looked great right in the middle of Bennett's cheek. Bennett tried to duplicate the same thing on his other cheek, but it just looks like alot of circles. Nice. Now I have to go straight to swim lessons and do not have time to scrub them down so they look normal. We were only 5 minutes away from leaving the house when this happened.
Now, of course, I have a loud two year old with me in the middle of alot of other kids and moms at a public place with ink scribbles all over his face (no one else could discern it was a dog). I knew the comments would come and they soon did. All I could do was smile in response. After all, it's only ink and you're only little once. I'd rather them experiment with ink dogs on their cheeks and feet now than have to deal with permanent ink on them (in the form of a tattoo) when they are older. It's all relative.
Poor Bennett...he wants to be big so bad. He thinks he's 5 just like brother, only with the vocabulary of a two year old. His best phrases are: "me too", "not me", "yeah, me know how" and "me no like dat". Ever since he started putting syllables together at 12 months old, he has spoken in triplicate. An example would be "eat, eat, eat" or "me bayme, me bayme, me bayme" (translation 'my baby' - yes, my two year old son has a baby doll - that's a whole other story). So, he likes to make sure he is heard. I guess that comes with being the second child. But, he has found that that technique, along with a very whiney sounding voice, moves us into action.
He used this technique on me today when we took Gavin to his first swim lesson. Brother had his shoes off, so Bennett says in his very loud, whiney voice "me too, me too, me too". Why not, I figure, it can't hurt anything. Brother takes his shirt off so he can get into the pool. Again, Bennett repeats his request. Again, I concede because I know he likes to be like brother. But when Gavin gets into the pool and Bennett keeps yelling (yes, he's moved up a notch from whining to yelling to emphasize how desperate he is) "me too, me too, me too", I had to draw the line. Unfortunately, Bennett could not see the line and continued to press me from all sides and took his triplicate talk to new levels.
For 30 minutes - non-stop - he repeated his request and for 30 minutes I told him when he was 3 he could take swim lessons. So, he had a very simple solution for me. He would tell me "me want be free (3) right now" (x3). Now I have to explain the concept of time.
This was a very hard lesson for him and I feel bad for taking him to a pool and not letting him swim. But he did well considering. Now I only have 4 more days of this. I'm sure he'll forget this lesson come Monday when swim lessons resume and we'll start all over again.
Tonight's entry was inspired by the conundrum I found my self in while cooking dinner tonight. I like to think of this as a creative cooking technique, although I'm sure other's might call it a different name.
I was cooking a meal which called for cream of chicken soup. Pretty much the key ingredient. There was nothing I could substitute for it. I already had everything cooking and went to the cupboard to pull out my soup and to my surprise - there was none!! I like to think of myself as creative, so I put my thinking cap on and tried to come up with a solution. Here are a few of my thoughts during my conundrum:
1. call Chuck to stop by the store on the way home and pick up one can of soup for $0.49 which he would have to charge since he never has any cash on him and that would make him an extra half an hour late. I think not. I know I can come up with a better idea....hmmm....
2. pile all three children (1 of which is still taking his nap) into the car in 100 degree weather and drive the 15 minutes it takes to get to our grocery store. Unload my gang and make sure to find the special cart (you know, the one's that have little cars attached to them so the kids can pretend to drive) which they never have enough of. Then fight the rush hour crowds in the store and stand in line for 15 minutes for one $0.49 can of soup. Nope....It's the end of the day and my sanity is already pretty shaky. I don't think I can handle an outing such as that and remain sound of mind for the rest of the evening.
3. wait till Chuck gets home and all of us run up to Sonic...but what to do about the chicken I've already cut and all the ingredients already in the pan....nope, we have no cash anyways.
4. look thru the trash.
Yes, you read that correctly. I did indeed opt for thought number 4. You see, I remember just recently throwing away a can of soup because I thought it was out-dated. But at this point I'm desparate. And then I think to myself - "I'll be cooking it over a high enough temperature, that should kill any of the bad stuff".
Little does my family know the amount of thought I put into making dinner every night. I bet they wish I would think less. Much to my surprise, dinner turned out great! Who knew?
All the celebrities have one...they make the celebrity look all decked out in the latest fashions. You've even seen them on "Extreme Makeover". But, not many people are aware of this closet skill that many mother's posses. I was so thrilled to find out that I, too, am a personal shopper. I pick out coordinated outfits for my children, one and all, each and every day - sometimes even two. Unlike most personal shoppers, I also get to launder these fabulous outfits. But I don't mind that secondary responsibility that comes along with 'the title'.
My eldest son, Gavin, who is 5, loves that he has a personal shopper. I am like putty in his hands (so he thinks). I take my position quite seriously on this little subject since he has acquired zero fashion sense. We'll thank genetics on that one (particularly Grandpa). However, I'm glad I can be there to assist him during such critical choices such as: does the "I'm a Dunkin Donuts kid" bright royal blue with pink letters t-shirt go with light blue basketball shorts? I think not - actually, it really doesn't go with anything, ever. It was cute on him at two - but I think it's out-lived it's 15 minutes of fame and needs to stay in the back of the closet.
Most of the time he listens. But when he likes his choice better than mine I break out into a small sweat and try to calmly encourage my choice. When that fails, I opt for plan C - find the sticker to place on his back that reads: "I picked out my own clothes today" so that other mothers won't look down on his personal shopper. It is in those moments that I'm unable to explain to the other 'personal shoppers' that I didn't even buy the Dunkin Donuts t-shirt and that he is in the critical phase of early childhood development where he needs to exercise his choices - even if they aren't the one's mommy would make.
Thankfully, my two year old, Bennett is already showing signs of fashion intelligence. If we could ever get him out of diapers, he could dress himself to look like quite the happing kid. He even turns down clothes options that his personal shopper lays out for him in the mornings. Again, his personal shopper doesn't take this personally because she knows that such choices are important for children to make to feel like they are 'independent'.
Sweet Chloe is my living little Barbie doll and I am in personal shopper's paradise when it comes to outfitting her, at least at this age (3mos). We might have to readdress this topic at a later date when she ges to the 'age of reckoning'. That is the stage of life which most little girls go through when it dawns on them that Mom might be stuck in a fashion time warp. IF that moment ever occurs between Chloe and myself, I will gently redirect her current fashion mishaps and guide her back to the ever so beautiful fashions of the 80's like I grew up with - and I turned out just fine, didn't I?!
Did I mention that if you choose to become a personal shopper - it would be handy to have a degree in psychology, reverse psychology, or mind-reading? You will find that this doesn't only come in handy for purchasing and putting clothes on your children, but in all aspects of parenthood.
