How to Go to the Grocery Store Alone With Small Children, Step by Step

1. Make sure the scheduled grocery trip is nowhere near naptime. Or before mealtimes.
2. Bring snacks, stop for a Happy Meal if necessary. Don't skip this step. Seriously, a tiny box of raisins, a Dum Dum, a pack of fruit snacks. Anything.
3. Park near the cart area. Like right next to it, so you can have good manners and return the cart without a long walk after. Stay away from the car carts that have your child seated 10 feet in front of you. Keep your enemies close, so to speak. Not to mention, those carts are very hard to steer, as many knocked-over boxes can attest. See #7.
4. Bring baby wipes. Just do.
5. Chatter to your kids about every little thing you can distract them with(Ooh look, there are the lobsters, let's go say "Hi!"{aka look away from the doughnuts})
6. Steer clear of the candy aisle. This should go without saying.
7. Drive the cart as fast as you dare, especially through snack and cereal aisles. Apologize profusely to every shopper you crash into. Which is most of them.
8. "Ooh and Aah" profusely over the various fruits and veggies, especially those on sale. "Ooh, Canteloupe, my favorite! Oh My Gosh! Let's get one!" "Would you like to help me cook this awesome cauliflower? It looks like a brain!"
9. Kids are going to spot every cartoon character item dangling in front of them. They are everywhere, and kids won't miss a one. So you say..."Say hello to the princess...have a good day, princesses! Oh look! Cheerios! How exciting! And look! Around the corner is chicken! Yum!" Zoom away. Distract.
10. Keep moving at all times. Do not stop the cart to comparison shop. Eyeball it as you approach and grab it as you pass. Do not stop. Do. Not. Stop.
11. Choose your checkout line. Eyeball the cashier. Does he or she look friendly? Fatherly, Motherly, grandmotherly? If he or she is already scowling, they won't have patience for you and your mountain of groceries. Or your kid(s.)
12. Checkout. Have your child "help" you unload the groceries onto the conveyer belt. Hand them small items as fast(or faster) as they can unload them so they don't have one moment to scope out the candy ever so conveniently placed at their eye level directly behind them.
13. If you manage to complete steps 1-12, go ahead, reward the kids with a candy bar, if they are on sale. Praise them until you lose your voice on how well they did and how fun it was to take them to the store.
14. If things don't go so well, breathe. Like if your 4 year old son thinks he can muscle 2 gallons of milk simultaneously onto the conveyor. And misses. And drops a gallon on the third try. And it splatters all over the whole world. And you want to crawl in a hole and die. Breathe. This is not the end of the world. Chances are, the cashier and bagger will feel sooo bad for you, they will clean up the mess with a smile and take your groceries to your car without even asking if you want them to. Don't cry until you get to the car. Or if you load up on two weeks' worth of groceries successfully but get to the car and it won't start. In the dead heat of an Arizona June. Breathe. Cry, just a little. But tomorrow it will be in the past. And you will call someone who loves you to come and rescue you. And they will. And the next trip we will try, try again.
I will stop here, because #10 is long past, I won't make it to #20, and I like the number 14, personally. So here are my super secret Super Mom secrets to grocery shopping. They are not foolproof, see above. Nor are they to be taken quite literally. I write tongue-in-cheek. I hope you realize that when reading most of my posts. Please know what that means.

Twitter

Apparently, I am doing quite the trendy thing. Between Facebook and my beloved blogs, I am with the "in crowd" these days. {shudder} I hate to be trendy. But my darling husband has been asking me why I do not Twitter also. I have a sneaking suspicion he is being a tiny bit sarcastic, as he just might want something to tease me about. But I looked into it. Apparently, Twitter is huge right now. Like, totally trendy, which totally repels me. Strike One. All the celebs are doing it on their Blackberries...strike two. You are limited to 140 characters??? All right.. that does it. I am sorry, I know you all will be hugely disappointed but if you remember from a certain earlier post I wrote about texting, that is just not enough room for me. As much as you wanted to be continually updated on the minute to minute excitement that is my life, I can't fit it into 140 characters. And it is trendy. eew. I have to invest my energy into less trendy and more constructive endeavors...but hark!
I hear from the other room the "Ohhhhhhhh!" sound in unison from my children. Do you know what that means? Oh, yeah, Spongebob is on and they are not napping. So the blogging break is over. See you later, trendy friend.

Flexibility

Sometimes life throws you a curveball. Sometimes you strike out. We all have those bad days or days when we struggle to regain our perspective.

One thing I have learned is that I need to learn to trust outside myself. I like to be in control of my surroundings, every detail immaculately planned and executed according to the plans made well in advance. But, the best laid plans will sometimes go awry. I live in the world and I have children. That should explain it.

So my children are teaching me a lesson that I have never before learned. I have to be flexible and learn to take life as it comes. I have recently learned that not everything in life is divided down the lines of right and wrong, as in the right way to do things(my way) versus the wrong way to do them(someone else's idea.) It is okay to have preferences, or to have something work a little better than something else, but it is also okay if someone doesn't butter their toast the "right" way. That is just how I prefer to do it(back when I ate toast with butter, that is.) A true but very simplified example.

I have made many plans in my life, in my motherhood specifically, on the "right" way I wanted to raise my kids. But somewhere along the line I realized that if I stick too stubbornly to the "right" way, I would be ignoring my kids' needs and what made them happy. So I am trying to focus first on their happiness, then making the plans afterward, instead of the other way around. And sometimes as a mom, you have to know when to just let go and have fun.

The trouble I have with this is my thinking. Someone I heard speak once said to "Quit your stinkin' thinkin'!" I believe that is impossible for me. Believe me, I have tried. But what I can do is plan to be flexible. If I have plans A, B, C-M, and so on, then I can have the appearance of being flexible for other people's sakes and still feel in control for my own sake. Because if plans A-L don't work out, I know plan M will come through. And if not, I can make up plan N at a moment's notice. I just have to plan for it.

P.S. I apologize for the lack of pictures of late, but it is due to some technical difficulties and I promise to be back soon with some good ones. Meaning, I will give the camera to L.

99 pictures

 Son had his uncle J and cousin B over for a couple nights' sleepover and Son went crazy with the camera the first night. Boys will be boys. I deleted all the ones of the ceiling, the floor, Son's foot, etc. and here are some of the ones I came up with:

That is not my child.
Look, Mom, photographic evidence that J brushed his teeth before bed... And B flossed...

It was a long weekend, but I am, as always, focusing on the positives. Someday I will look back and laugh about the time my bedroom window got broken by a football, but for now...silly pictures. Son loves his dear cousin and uncle so much, as you can tell.

And I am going to heaven for sure... just look at the halo around my head.

Down a peg(or two)

I love taking my kids to the grocery store.
I usually pack a mini box of raisins, today it was fruit snacks, for them and let them ooh and aah as we shop. We stop to look at the lobsters and say hello on our way...I love it. Today Son lost his fruit snacks by the time we got to the carts. For once the store was not out of the car carts, so we loaded up into a red one and headed oh so patiently back to the car to retrieve them. As we walked I thought smugly to myself what a brave and patient mom I was, what other mom on earth actually looks forward to a trip to the grocery store with their kids? What a nice day....

The fruit snacks were not in the car.

Panic ensued. A search party was assembled. It failed miserably.

Patient still...then the climbing started(the seatbelts on the red car were broken) and the screaming resumed in the middle of the produce aisle while Daddy called on the cell. Great.
Eventually we got settled down enough to get the rest of our list and get to the checkout, where a couple of us came down with a bad case of the octopus grab-hands. This can be deadly, people. Serious. I think one of us gritted her teeth so hard she may have damaged a filling in her effort to maintain composure. The employees felt so sorry for us that they didn't even ask if we wanted help to our car, they just took the cart and went. That, right there, is my instant punishment for patting myself on the back for my mothering skills. By the way, in case you read my slightly smug money post a couple posts ago, I went a little over budget this trip, too. I'm blaming it on the kids. Ah, heck, it's probably my punishment for that post, too. Don't panic, L, it wasn't by much :).

Question of the Day

Potty training question: how many pairs of panties do you go through a day?

Answer: Some days one, other days this many...


P.S. It's nine, by the way, and they're all dry. And she put them all on herself. Skirt-style. I helped with the last one so her little cheeks would be covered.

Titanic, part one...

I am a detail oriented person. Very detail oriented. More than anyone else you will probably ever meet. I could make a living proofreading the phonebook if there was good money in it. I'm not kidding. So when I start a project, I have many detailed questions. Many. Detailed. Questions....

I started an "easy" sewing project a long time ago. So long that I refuse to write down how long I have stared at it and wished I could finish it. It started out as a rag quilt, now it is a King size bedspread. I have tripped myself up on every phase of this project. I tend to think of ways to make projects "different" or "better" and usually that just means "compl-i-ca-ted." I asked L to help me and promptly confused the heck out of him. We finally configured the thing to where we "wouldn't hate it for eternity" and it is almost finished. It is now dubbed the Titanic...the no-fail, dummy sewing project that hit many innocent-looking snags that nearly sank it. It now proudly rests on the water(bed) because although I am not done with the "rag" part, it is assembled and we are sleeping with it, darnit! So I will undress my bed daily and work on the ragging part faithfully, and when Titanic sails I will proudly post pictures!

P.S. Too many details?

potty training and life

Potty Training as a Metaphor for Life:

1. Go hard or Go Home: You cannot potty train if both you and your child are not ready. If your child is ready, but you are not able to commit, it won't happen. If you are ready, but your child is not, it won't happen. Just like in life, if you are not really committed, you will end up with a mess on your hands.

2. My Way or the Highway: Even at the tender age of 18 mos, children have a preference. I picked out potty chairs for both of my children, then had to go back again when they did not like the first one. Daughter has decided she wants to go on the big potty with a little seat attached instead of her own chair. My job as her mother is to recognize things like that and to accomodate them whenever possible. Son wanted to pee standing up. Try as I might, I could not get him to sit down to pee. Once I quit trying to make him do it my way, he had success. It was a couple of months before I could get him to sit down for #2, but he had pee down pat by then. So I guess it is not really "my" way, unless you are thinking from the kids' perspective.

3. Find the Fun in Life: If it is something that is exciting and fun, they will do it gladly. I let both of my kids pick out their undies and got them super excited to go. We had potty chairs ready in the bathroom for a while while we talked about how neat it will be when they get to go on the potty. For my kids, at least, if they feel pressure, they resist against it. As much as I dread doing certain things in life, if I make a challenge or contest for myself, with a prize at the end, any task becomes fun.

4. Accidents happen: They are a part of life and certainly part of potty training. Have plenty of back up undies, as well as a mop handy for messes, but avoid making a big deal out of it. It took some convincing to get Son to quit gagging every time Daughter had an accident. There is another well known saying in life that fits here: s*&@ happens(use your imagination, it applies to both scenarios.)
5. Don't Procrastinate: if you do, you will end up cleaning up a giant mess that would have been avoided had you taken care of it five minutes earlier. Trust me, don't wait for the next commercial break. That is what TiVo is for.
I have been spending a lot of time in the bathroom lately keeping my girl company, and it may have addled my brain, but it seems to me that so many challenges in life can be conquered using the same concepts as when we first learn these basic skills. It is really hard to figure things out at first, but when you get the hang of it, it becomes like second nature. Just be sure to heed Nature's call.

The difference between boys and girls

I never had a Barbie corvette when I was a girl. So I would raid my mom's closet for the highest heels I could find. Those were my Barbie corvette. And let me tell you, Barbie was looking HOT in her new car! Now I find Daughter already raiding my closet for MY hottest heels. And her mommy loves stillettos. She puts them on and walks around just like mommy. Her feet are so tiny they fit in the level part of the shoe, so she is really quite stable in them. Consequently, I am always picking up scattered heels from every corner of the house.

This morning Son ran by the kitchen, where I was doing dishes, with a black stilleto in his hand. I stopped him and asked if he would please put it back in my closet. He said, "Okay, Mom, but your shoe looks like a gun!"

And that, my friends, is the difference between boys and girls.

Son's Sayings

I have to share some recent cute quotes from my little man:

Him: How did I get out of your tummy, Mom?
Me: The Dr helped me.
Him: Was there a door in your tummy?

and later in that same conversation:

Him: How did I get big?
Me: I made you.
Him:How did you make me?
Me: God and Daddy helped. (thinking...please God, help me now!)
Him: How did they help?
Me: We'll talk about that when you are bigger. (Much, much bigger)
Him: I'm big!
Me: Trust me, not big enough.

During a two-kid bath, we had a conversation about bath safety.
Me: You can't knock Sister down in the bath. You have to be very careful with her. If she goes under the water, she could drown.
Him: And she would die?
Me: She could...or she could get hurt. We love her and don't want her to get hurt.
then a few minutes later...
Him:I love you, my baby. I don't want you to die.

So many questions, but the answers are dwindling(at least the ones I can tell him now.)

Once Upon a Time...

there was a beautiful little toddler, we'll call her Baughter*. She was precocious and too smart for her own good. One day Baught(for short) went to her closest Auntie, Bessica's house. Bessica had moved to a new house just the day before. Baught and her mommy were going to help Auntie Bessica unpack and get settled in her new house. As Baught's mommy filled a closet with blankets and Auntie took a shower, Baught went into her cousin's room, shut the door and locked it. Baught's mommy realized what Baught had done just a moment later and tried the doorknob. To her surprise, it would not turn. Supposing it to be a run-of-the-mill household doorknob, mommy went to get a butterknife or screwdriver to open it. When she leaned in to insert the screwdriver she had found, she discovered that it was no ordinary doorknob. It was a special security doorknob that required a special key to open it. There were no screws or hinges that could be removed to open it. Her first reaction was to laugh in disbelief, as Baught had never locked a door before, and had just the night before learned how to use a doorknob. Mommy peeked her head into the bathroom where Auntie was showering.
"Ummm, Bess? Do you happen to have a key for that door..."
"Oh, (fill in the blank) no! I don't!"
Mommy could not do anything but laugh at the absurdness of it all, even as Auntie started to panic. Mommy hoped she could get Baught to figure out what she had done and how she had done it, maybe this uncommonly brilliant child could be led to understand. Baught understood that there was a problem, but not how it was caused or how to fix it.
"Mommy?" then "Uh-Oh." was heard as Mommy knocked on the door and rattled the doorknob. Mommy tried poking various objects into the doorknob hopelessly. She never had acquired the skill necessary to pick a lock. She went outside to the window, but dared not attempt to remove the screen of Auntie's new house for fear of breaking it. So she waited, just a moment, for poor Auntie to rush out of the shower and find her tennis shoes. Mommy and Auntie wrenched the innocent screen out of the window, but alas, the window was locked. Mommy called Baught's Daddy, hoping not to panic him, but hoping he could give some brilliant advice as to what to do next. Daddy had picked a lock or two in his lifetime, and gave some clues to help, still Mommy had no luck. Auntie called her leasing agent, Rad, to see what he could do. In the meantime, Baught was still calling, "Mommy?" and getting increasingly agitated. Finally! Mommy had an idea! Mommy ran to the kitchen to retrieve....candy. Mommy and Auntie took turns talking to Baught and shoving Smarties and other small candies under the door to distract Baught. Mommy and Auntie feared that if Baught started crying, they would have to kick the door down with superhuman Mommy and Auntie powers. It worked, Baught quieted down long enough for Rad to arrive. Rad brought an arsenal of small tool with him and settled down to work on the door. They heard another "Uh-Oh" as Rad began to bang on the door frame. He said, "She's all right, I hear the candy wrappers rattling." That did it. The absurdity of the situation hit and Mommy and Auntie could not help but giggle, picturing Baught tearing into candy wrappers. Rad had to remove part of the door trim, but was able to hit the catch and open the door to a red-faced, very confused, candy-toting Baught, who finally burst into tears at the sight of the stranger who'd freed her. Mommy picked up Baught and soothed her as Auntie fed her chocolate kisses by the hundreds. Mommy felt sorry for Auntie, who felt sorry for Baught. All was right in the world again, until it was time to go. Then Mommy accidentally hit Baught in the face with the front door, knocking her down. Then she really cried.
The End

*Although this was a true story, names have been changed to protect the, um, innocent.

Thanks!

This is so random, but I have to confess something. I was worried about being late to pick up Son from preschool today. As I turned onto the street where his school was, I may have been doing a bit more than 15, going maybe 17 miles an hour. (Disclaimer: I do not advocate speeding, I am one of the slowest drivers around, but today I must admit, as I was feeling a bit rushed, it was really hard not to.) Then I noticed a police car turn behind me. I glance down at my speedometer and realize I am just a hair above the limit and he has every right to pull me over if he is feeling like a stickler that day. Thankfully, it seems he wasn't, because as I pulled into the parking lot, he kept on cruising. I was not late to pick Son up, but I surely would have been late(not to mention horribly embarrassed) if I had been on the side of the road getting a ticket for speeding in a school zone, which in my opinion is the worst speeding-type offense a mom can commit. So, lesson learned, thank you for not teaching it to me the hard way Mr. Police Officer(sir,) it is better to be almost late than late + speeding ticket.

Game.

Cindy Hunt has tagged me to play this game. Here are the rules...
1: Each player starts with 8 random habits/facts about themselves. 2: People who are tagged need to write a post on their blog about their eight things and post these rules. 3: At the end of the post you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.
I am a total rookie at this stuff, but here goes...hmm, 8 random/wierd facts about me...L helped me because of course, I do not think anything about me is wierd, he was kind enough to point out a few things! ;)

1.I love to cook, but I am not a great talent at keeping the house clean, I find it very difficult.
2. I like to crumble crackers or cornbread on top of soup.
3.I am VERY easily grossed out. I cannot bring myself to even say a word that I think is gross. I have to look the other way if there is roadkill, L has to lie to me and say it is just a piece of wood or something so I don't get too grossed out. I know he is lying, but I choose to believe it!
4.I am a huge perfectionist. I have to have things perfect, or I can't do them at all. Maybe that is why I have trouble with keeping the house clean. I don't have time or energy to have it as perfectly clean as I would like it, so I just can't do it!
5.I hate shopping. Even if it is for something I need, I can't bring myself to buy it unless L talks me into it. I like looking, but hate buying. I know a lot of people who wish they had this problem!
6. I love music, but I don't love listening to the radio, because I don't believe that a lot of what they play qualifies as music. I love all genres of music, but I am picky about individual songs.
7.I hate driving. I will avoid it every chance I get.
8.I love spending time with my giant extended family, I can't get enough of it! Every year we see them during the busy holidays, and every year I vow not to have the holidays be the only time I see them! Maybe this year...

Ok, now, you all know I am a rule breaker...I am not(gasp!) going to name 8 people I'm tagging...I am tagging YOU! Yes, you, reading this right now, if you have not done this, consider yourself tagged. Love you! haha

Ice Cream Truck

The other night L and I were working on a outdoor project together, so the kids hung out in the back of the Rodeo and played "Ice Cream Truck." Every so often L or I would take an ice cream break and buy pretend ice cream from the kids. Son was so hilarious as the little businessman...Vanilla was $1 but the fancier the flavor, the prices went up! Strawberry was $4!

And man, you had to make sure he remembered to count out your change, too! He almost kept my whole pretend $20 bill! Sheesh!

They also had cookies and cream flavor until...SOMEONE ate all the cookies!
My kids had a blast, but they must have been too sweet, because despite our best efforts with bug spray, they got lots of mosquito bites! I felt really bad, but we were working on the door, there really was nothing more we could do. I had to explain to Son's preschool teacher when I dropped him off the next day that it was not chicken pox!

I Love Me

When is the last time you kissed yourself in the mirror?

When was the last time you were 100% happy to be who you are?
My new goal(I'd make it a New Year's resolution, but you know how well those turn out) is to be a good example to my children of a confident woman who loves herself exactly as she is every day. I am human(shocker!!) and I'm not perfect, of course, but I can embrace myself as I am. I want to teach my daughter by example to love every part of herself and not to struggle as I did for much of my life with a poor self-image.

Ok, so this picture doesn't go with my theme, but isn't she just too cute kissing the doll? I love how you can see her little lips puckered up...

Things we pulled out of my guitar...a mystery!

My guitar was making a funny rattling sound, and this is what we found:

Any guesses as to who is the culprit?

Cinderelly

It seems like Daughter and I have a lot of time together these days while Son is in school. I had almost 50 pictures on my camera when I realized they were all of Daughter, sorry son! So this is what we do while Son is in school:
Clean the house...

look at the poor thing slave away! That vacuum has a handle that goes down to her size, she insists on having a turn!

Then here she is in her first princess dress up shoes:

She wore them around and walked as well as I do in heels! She is the mini jewelry lady in the making! She loves the jewelry! Every time I get some new pieces, she has to check them out and carry the gold boxes around with her. She has tons of bracelets that she constantly puts on and takes off, you know mommy loves that!
So you see, she is a real life Cinderella...slaves away during the day, all diva at night!!!
She is so sweet, with her crazy hair and diva attitude(maybe despite the attitude?) Her hair looks sooo cute when it is freshly done. I get so many compliments from mothers whose daughters have much less hair than she does, but I want to laugh because that hair never ever stays cute for long. A short nap or car ride later and it is MESSY! Luis says she looks like a treasure troll, remember those?

Our Garden

We managed to grow a garden this year for the first time ever! I have tried several times to even keep a house plant alive, I never seemed to water it right. Always too much or not enough=dead plants. So L handled the initial planting and watering, and once it was established a bit then I dared to come near it. Here is our first sprout(zucchini) we grew.

The day we took this picture we went to my Grandpa O's house. We told he and Grandma about our first sprout of our garden, we were so excited that we finally got something to grow...until Grandpa showed us his plants. He had planted them roughly at the same time and his garden was jungle-like! I wasn't too jealous, though, because I was just happy that we didn't waste all that time and water for nothing at all to come up. But before we knew it, we had things like this growing:

Now we have all the zucchini and yellow squash we can eat, and tons of butternut and watermelon coming soon!

We had also planted cucumbers, which apparently make very tasty plants for squirrels... so we were left with a bare row of dirt in the middle of the garden. So I took a few seeds from a butternut squash I was cooking and literally stuck them into the ground right out of the squash. My green thumb must have finally developed, because they grew and filled in every spare inch of the garden! We have just picked the first of them. I highly recommend attempting a garden, it has been such fun for our whole family, Son is learning so much and will eat anything that comes out of a garden, ours or someone else's. Not to mention the sprinklers are great fun!

One more funny anecdote: L worked very hard prepping the soil to plant our garden. He has a tendency never to buy the right amounts of things for projects... he either runs out and has to go back to the store 5 times, or he buys way too much of things. Case in point: manure. We were running errands as a family with both cars on one warm afternoon. One of the errands was buying manure for our garden prep, another was getting the tires rotated. L bought 12 huge bags of manure and loaded them into the back of our newish Rodeo. We walked around the shopping center for a while after that because the tire rotation took quite a bit longer than we anticipated. After a while we decided to go ahead and take the kids home in the rodeo and leave Luis behind to bring the car when it was finished, they were getting cranky and it was getting pretty hot out. As we approached the parking spot where we left the Rodeo, we discovered what 12 bags of manure smell like after heating up in an enclosed car for a hour. The poor kids had to ride home 15 minutes in that stench...UGH! I swear it took a couple months before the Rodeo was back to its nice coconut tree smell again. After all of that, we now have EIGHT fifty pound bags of @#%! left over still smelling up the backyard when the wind blows just right. The good news is, it is not going to go bad and smell any worse. And, of course, in case we have a worldwide manure shortage, we are COVERED!