Only at Walmart

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday.

I should stop here and allow your imaginations to take control.

But I won’t.

I had just one kid, Minion #3 and we were on a mission. He had things he wanted to accomplish and I needed milk and meatballs. We set out on our adventure through the great uncompromising capitalist jungle with lists in hand and my Shop kick app at the ready. We had a few successful “kicks” under our belts when it happened…

The kid was in the “big part” of the shopping cart, a thing that I do to keep me from loading it up with the inevitable crap I don’t need except when I am standing in front of it at Wal-Mart wondering how I have lived my whole life without that watermelon knife.

So there we were scanning the barcode of Sensodyne toothpaste, the minion was standing up in the cart with his hand on my shoulder “helping” me with my phone. When all of a sudden a random lady stopped dead at the end of the toothpaste isle, left her cart and ran over to us whisper-yelling “Oh NO! Little boy you MUST sit down. Please! Do you know what will happen to you when you fall out of that cart? Your head will Bust open and you will have to go to the hospital and get it glued back together!”

#3 and I stood in silence for what felt like a full 2 minutes though it was probably more like 3 seconds. Our eyes wide, mouths slightly open from shock, if we were emojies we would have been “WTF!?” faces. Then #3 looked at her and said “Uhhhh. What?” (Couldn’t have said it better myself). She gave an odd little giggle like a mix between Tweety Bird and Satan. Then repeated herself going further to say that he should not stand in the cart and that “I’m sure your mother is just too busy to notice but sweetie, you are just too cute and I would hate to see you permanently injured, I’m sure your Mommy really doesn’t have time for that.”

The kid and I looked at each other, blinked, looked back at her, and waited.

She then went on to tell him how cute he is (naturally he agreed with that). She waited until he sat down and then walked off tossing over her shoulder “Not trying to tell you how to parent, he is just so cute.” Which is when I should have said, “What in the absolute hell does one have to do with the other you crazy over parenting nightmare of a fellow Wal-Mart shopper. Seriously what the Shit!?”  But she was gone before I could get my thoughts gathered from a stream of expletives to a semi-proper sentence.

As we walked through the rest of the store #3 kept an eye out for “The Lady” as he called her. One of our goals for that particular trip was for him to spend his own money. I wanted to teach him about price comparison and making sure he bought what he came for etc. In order to do that I would have him stand in the cart to read prices and what have you. Every time I told him to stand he would hold his little four-year-old index finger up and say “Wait Mommy. Must check for The Lady”. The first time he did it I asked him why, his explanation was simple “She not gonna yell at MY Mommy again!”

Throughout our shopping he would randomly put his hand to his forehead as if on look out, whip his head around and say, “CLEAR!” It actually turned into quite an exhilarating little game.

When we finally reached check out we were pleased to find that ahead of us in line was one of our sweet church ladies. #3 yelled “HEY! HEY YOU, IT’S ME! I LOVE YOU!” Which of course caused her to fly into him with a gargantuan embrace. They chatted a little, discussing their day and what not until the kid looked up and said “Oh, I’m sorry you need get back to your spot now. The Lady is here. Mommy, quick, it’s her, she’s behind you!”

I turned and was face to face with her. She spent the entire time in line grilling the minion asking if he’s a good boy and why he had a Shopkins piggy bank. “That is very pretty is that for your sister?” she asked. “NO.” said my boy “It’s mine! (pish) No sisters!”

I liked how he handled that one but I would have thrown in a “bitch please”.

He then explained that he broke his Ninjin Turtle piggy bank so he had to buy a new one with his own money. That impressed her so she started praising my parenting which of course, transitioned into a lecture on how one should raise children to be fiscally responsible.

As she was explaining to #3 that it is never too early to start saving for college our lovely and wonderful church lady appeared at the minion’s side folding a ten dollar bill into his small fist. “Do you think if I give you this you could talk your Mommy into buying you and your brothers some ice cream?”

His bright excited eyes answered before he could squeak out “Yes! Mommy will do that!”

The Lady silently watched the interaction with wonder. After our church lady left the other lady couldn’t help herself “Well that was awfully generous. Makes you wonder why a person would do that.”

I took that as my opening and said, “Well my husband is a pastor and she is one of our sweet church members that loves to spoil my kids rotten.”

Suddenly everything changed. She stood up straighter, moved her beer under the frozen pizza in her cart and began to absolutely fawn over my parenting skills. Her word patterns swiftly transitioned into spouting out things like “blessed” and “praise be”.

I have to say, it was worth it all just to watch this amazing transformation, if I was a different type of believer I might say she was saved right there in aisle 21 at the Festus Wal-Mart.

Dude's gotta be tough to have Mommies back!

JUST GET DRESSED we have to go praise Jesus!

I haven’t written in a while. I know that this is a pattern for me, I get my blog going for a month or so and then I fizzle out. Well, NOT this time! (Or so I say until life gets the better of me and makes me into a liar yet again)

A while back I wrote a blog congratulating myself for feeding my children that day. I stand by that. On occasion I will hear or read of moms that retract such sentiments. They will say they were not at their best that day (well no shit), or that they weren’t being their authentic selves (and to that I say bullshit). As a parent my authentic self is a tired, overworked, under rested, not properly nourished semi-human that occasionally does not have crazy eyes. I love my children and my spouse fiercely but that does not change my occasional need to hide in a closet with a bag of Oreos screaming cuss words until my throat is sore.

That being said, here is another story of parenting in reality…

As a pastor’s family Sundays are a marathon for us. Husband is up and gone at the crack of no one should get up that early on the weekend which leaves me to feed, water, and dress the minions for church. On weekends when I am “with it” and on the ball the boys will have nice clean only fairly wrinkled church clothes sitting out waiting for them. I will have some type of breakfast out so that they can feed themselves, and if I am really on a roll I will even know what I am wearing to church that day. There are, after all, unspoken expectations that we will be clean, groomed, and appropriately dressed when we walk into the sanctuary. We are the pastor’s family and as such are held to higher, and, at times unattainable standards, well, unattainable for me anyway. Now this could well be something that I am projecting onto myself, but…no, it is our truth.

As I said on, a “good” Sunday I will be mostly organized to the point of having an idea where shoes are. On a “great” Sunday I will have made a nutritious breakfast that does not include cereal or granola bars and I will have had my coffee before leaving the house as opposed to tossing it back cold as I pull into a parking spot listening the church bells ring telling me that a “good pastor’s wife” would have been there 10 minutes earlier. 

But, as I am sure you have guessed, this story is not about a “great” Sunday morning, it’s not even about a “good Sunday morning. This story is about the other kind of Sunday morning.

On this particular morning I allowed the kids to watch T.V. while I rested my eyes on the couch. I made sure they had a bagel or a waffle with peanut butter and at the very least a cup of milk. I allowed too much eye resting and T.V. watching so that when time came to get ready for church I was in a bit of a panic. I sent the boys upstairs to find handsome church clothes while I searched every half full laundry basket and miscellaneous sock pile for socks that were at least the same size (higher points scored for the same color). I had to send them each up at least twice and then I inevitably ended up making the trek upstairs myself to search for pants without holes and shirts without stains. I also had a rather passionate debate with the small one telling him that no matter how awesome he thought it would be he could not wear his brother’s batman shirt with penguin footy pajama bottoms and a bowtie.

I should interject here that Minion #3 had been asking all morning for Skittles, telling me that he was staaaaaaaaaaarving and that his tummy only wanted to gigest skittles, not bagels or a banana.

When all minions were dressed and ready I handed them devices telling them to sit on the couch and not move while I took a shower.

That lasted just about 5 minutes before I had a child or his brother, or the other brother banging on the bathroom door asking how to spell “really cool”, or telling me that his brother hit him, or asking me why his shoe felt funny.

As I rushed up from the basement (where the only shower is) through the kitchen and into my room while clutching my falling towel and trying to remember if I brushed my hair I dismissed calls of “No fair! I wanted to pee first” and “MoommEY my tummy REALLY needs Skittles”. I’m not sure if I have mentioned before but our house is old, like built in the thirty’s and lacks modern technology such as a lock on the master bedroom door so there is always some question as to whether or not I am ever fully alone. Needless to say (because this is not a story about a great Sunday) I did not remain alone for long. I was in the middle of trying to simultaneously put on my pants and my bra while downing a protein drink (breakfast) when the small one walked in and distracted me so that I fell to the floor.  I was a jumbled mess of bra, pants, socks and banana flavored nastiness and the child walked up to me, kissed me on the nose and walked out again. Once I was dressed and searching for my glasses in the fridge the small one took to following me around the kitchen going on and on about why Skittles are a healthy snack that will build muscles. Just as I was turning around to give him the final NO my hand hit the kitchen shelf which teetered just enough to send the Skittles bag to the floor spilling them everywhere.

I looked at the mess.

He looked at the mess.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

I looked at the broom.

I looked at the clock.

And then I said “Go to town.” And walked out of the room.

By the time we left for church we were all dressed. One of them had on his brother’s underwear and another socks from the day before but we got out the door and to church. And we were all a little energized from skittles.

WHAT? We ARE ready for church!

You're Not The Boss of Me Now

Sometimes my life could be an episode of Malcolm in the Middle…

As lunch was coming to an untimely and messy end I turned to Minion #1 and said “I am going to say words, I want you to hear MY words before you say YOUR own words. IF you let me finish my words I have no doubt that you will be pleasantly surprised. O.K.?”

What he heard was “I am going to say something terrible that you are not going to like. Whatever you do, do NOT allow me to finish and by all means interrupt me as soon as you hear the word Walmart”

So, following my first statement, our conversation went a little something like this…

“O.k. Mommy.”

“I have to go to Walmart..”

“aaaawwwwww idon’twannnagotowalmart…”

“O.k. here is the part where you Let. Me. Finish. IhavetogotoWalmart. Wait. Butyoudon’thavetogo.”

“What do I have to do for you instead?”

(Smart boy)

“Well, I was thinking…”

“I could clean the living room!”

“Yes. You will clean the living room. Now let me finish. Your room needs…”

“aaaaaawwwwwww idon’twannacleanmyroom! I want to play Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”

“Right, so, here is what I was thinking. You have been very helpful and mature lately” (obviously I was not counting this conversation) “so if you clean the living room now, and promise that as soon as I get home you will turn off the Wii without complaint and clean your room…you can play Wii the whole time we are gone.”

“O.K. MOMMY! Sounds great! I’m getting right on that! Here, let me take your bowl to the sink. Want me to help load the dishwasher?”

It could only go downhill from there.

The little minions and I loaded up and went to Walmart which, as always, took longer than any human could possibly imagine. And of course, I did not accomplish the task of buying #2 a backpack which was the main goal of the trip. But while we were there I was nice enough to call #1 and describe a few shirts to him so that I could buy him a 1^st day of school shirt as I had promised.  

Then there was an incident with #2 and an extremely haughty overly concerned shopper that is clearly a better parent than I am, but that is a story for another blog post.

Just before we left the parking lot I called #1 and gave him a heads up that we were on our way home and reminded him of our deal.

“O.k. Mommy.”

As soon as we walked in the door I got “I’m in the middle of a level, please can’t I just finish it? Gawd!”

“Yes, finish that level.”

10 minutes later, “Hey, buddy, shouldn’t that level be over by now?”

I can always count on #2 to rat the other two out, “He died on that level two times, he’s playing it again”

ERUPTION from #1

So I walked over, turned the t.v. off and pointed up the stairs.

Oh…..the……freaking……drama…..

Went…on…for…evvvvver….

The phrases “You don’t understand me.”  “Why do you hate me.” And “Nothing good ever happens to me” were a few of my favorites. And he did turn to his brother at one point and screamed “YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!”

I tried to talk to him and throw a little reason his way. I reminded him that he did NOT have to go shopping, that I bought him the exact shirt that he wanted, that he was supposed to clean the living room and there were pillows everywhere when I got home, but none of this mattered. What did matter? “IT’S LIKE YOU DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT MY NEEDS!”

So, he is now upstairs for the rest of the day and I am downstairs with the t.v. turned up louder than I usually allow so that he can hear me playing the Wii. 

Sometimes a Mom has to have a little old school fun to drive a point home.