Uncertain

Every now and again I see a sweet picture of a baby. Usually they are all dressed up in adorable clothes with matching shoes. They have a clean face, are either happy or peaceful, and are perhaps nestled into the arms of their loving mothers, or even better, the strong hands of their daddy. When I see these "make you cry" pictures I think, "I'd like to have another one."

Every now and again I see a mom struggling to maintain the chaos as she wrestles her 3 kids into the car. I see a kid with chocolate EVERYWHERE. I see marker on the wall. I see throw up in the isle at the store. I see groceries rolling through the parking lot, coming from a bag that was just tossed out of the buggy by a 3 year old. When I see an infant screaming at the top of their lungs, totally inconsolable, and a momma trying her stressed-to-the-max best to get the screaming stopped, I think, "Thank you, GOD, that's not mine".

Sometimes

Sometimes...

   - the only this I eat for lunch is what's left on the highchair tray when my little one if finished.

   - someone spills crackers/chips and with out realizing it I eat a few while I'm cleaning it up. (it's my floor, at         least I know it's clean)

   - I spend all day playing with my kids and then frantically clean up the house when my hubby calls to say      he's on the way home.

There is something...

There is something wrong with me. I am tired all the time. I'm not sure exactly why. Between the middle of the night wakings, the running around like a mad-woman all day, and the workout's I do each day at the gym (in an attempt to stay sane...), I just can put my finger on it. There is just something...

I Cried

I just LOVE children. They are so naive, so sweet, so unaffected by years of "social graces" teachings. They say what they are thinking, and ask SO many embarrassing questions. I just LOVE it.

Earlier in the the week my little girl pointed to a man at a booth and said (in a very loud voice),"Mommy, why is he wearing earrings? He's not a girl." Very embarrassed, I looked up and saw him chuckling to himself. I knew he had heard the question. I didn't really know what else to do, so I pushed our shopping cart over to him and said, "Honey, I'm not sure. Why don't you as him?" And she did.

Today we stopped at what we refer to as "The Diaper Store". As we do at every store, we began our trip with a stop in the bathroom. Just about wrapping it up, I hear the little boy in the stall next to me ask, "Mommy, why do you tee-tee out your bottom?" I could hear her face turning red through the stall wall.

I totally understand the little guys confusion. I mean, boys and girls are simply different when it comes to these things. I laughed so hard I cried. She tried to "sush" him several time, and he continued to ask the question louder, and louder. I laughed harder.

She was almost angry with him as we were leaving the restroom. I wanted to say something like, "JUST EXPLAIN IT IN A LITTLE KID FRIENDLY WAY!" But I didn't. All I could manage was, "Kids, right?!?"

I just love kids.

Checkbook

In my family, it is my job to watch over the finances. I hate it. There is always something I can't seem to find!  It's irritating, and makes me want to pull my hair out. Where could $.04 have possibly walked off too? It was there last month, and in 30 short days it has walked off. At least if it was 22 dollars I would know I missed writing a purchase down. But, it's not $22; its 4 CENTS. So I will re-calculate, re- go over all the receipts, re-check the statement until I find it...Ugh!

Grocery Store

 
The grocery store is not one of my favorite places, but because I am a mother that stays at home, it is one of the few "outings" I get each week. I'm not saying I get to go there alone, I'm just saying that while dragging children around there are very few places I am willing to chance taking them inside.

When we get to the store, I approach the door knowing that I have "x" number of minutes that my children can go before we have a breakdown in the store. Someone will get mad because we do not purchase something they want, or someone wants to hold a can and I unknowingly put it in the buggy, or they get mad at one another. No matter how great a day it has been, at some point it will happen.

Each week as we approach those automatic glass doors, I take those steps to begin getting everyone happy and in a good mood. Kiss and hugs, a good joke, no matter what it takes I need everyone to be in the best possible mental place once we are on the other side of that door. As soon as we cross that invisible line, it's all business.

To be able to go through the store as quickly as possible I write my list before we go to the store. I get all my coupons ready (yes I am a couponer, but the store has NEVER owed me money at the end of a transaction. Even if I only have 1 coupon worth $.25 off toilet paper, I'm using it dang it!!! I'm a couponer!!), and make sure that every item on my list includes all the details of exactly what I am purchasing, how many, AND it's all written in the order of the store. I know what meat is at the end of the cereal isle and because I always go down that isle from the front to the back of the store, I know I'm picking up a bag of frozen chicken breast at the end of it. I'm just saying, time is of the essence.

   We fly through produce and back around the lunch meat counter and so on, filling our cart with the needs of the week. There are certain isles that I know I have to account extra time for, like the bread isle. They are always stocking the stupid thing and for some unknown reason to me there is always someone who parks their buggy directly across from the guy stocking the bagels blocking the whole thing. People are always cussing and getting all mad (I'm one of the mad ones, not the cussing ones) and by the time I make it off that isle with my tortillas, half of my time is used up.

   37 is our magic number…we have right at thirty-seven minutes to get from produce to tampons. Rounding the corner to the milk, this morning, I thought I was in the clear with 9 minutes left. Then out of nowhere there she was. I knew as we got close that she was a danger, but I needed just a few cold things and we were home free. It was entirely my fault…I made eye contact, something I try to never do in the grocery store. A little white-haired grandma.

   They are the sweetest enemy I have in this setting. She started with a “hello”, then, “your children are so beautiful”, and then dove head-long into all about her grandchildren, all their names, where all 7 of them live, how she never gets to see them and then began telling me a story about each one. We were on a lovely story about how Little Charlie (grandchild #4) was not ready for school to begin again, when I looked down at my watch. I gasped realizing I didn’t have any of my cold stuff and we were down to 1 minute. SHIZAM!

  This is why I hate the grocery store. I’m always getting sucked into this stuff. It kills me. I try to be nice and end up screwing myself over. The worst part is that I know something similar will happen again next week, and just like this week at least one of my kids will cry the whole time we’re trying to check out. Today I did something I’ve never done. It got so bad that I opened the bag of mini bagels and handed on to each kid so they would just hold it together until we got out side.

Oh, Grocery Store, perhaps one day we will have a better relationship.

  

In the Beginning

I'm beginning a new journey with this. The crazy, unedited version of motherhood as I know it. The crazy-embarassing, the emotional roller coasters, the good, bad, and , yes, even the ugly. Here goes a shot at telling it all.