Like I needed another reason to hate the grocery store

My cousin sent me this picture and I LOVE it.  I also love her because she is amazing and wonderful and a whole lot cooler than me - plus she has better clothes.  She blogs here.  Thanks, Audri.

With the boys both in school all day I can usually go grocery shopping with only two children in tow.  And I feel all light and breezy because I ONLY have two kids. (I bet you didn't realize that was a luxury did you?)  And yet. . . This nice older woman blocking the toothpaste isle asked me if there was a sale on babies. . . you know, because I have so many. . . *sigh*

I kind of felt like saying something about the THREE other children she didn't know about.  I'm not 'showing' yet, (unless you are my little sister - who says I'm getting fat; however she is 18 and allowed to have a warped view of what skinny actually is.) Really?  What is the nice answer to that?  "Please move away from the toothpaste - there is a sale on that too, and you already know so much about me that you know how I am about SALES."

And now that school is out for winter break, I had to take all the children with me to the grocery store.  I know it looks like a lot, because the baby prefers to be carried, so I usually have her in the sling, then one kid is in the  front of the cart and the other two hold on to either side.  They are (mostly) well behaved and not causing a lot of havoc, but we can't discreetly sneak past anyone in an isle either.  

. . . .And of course, an nice older couple stopped to admire Baby-Blue-Eyes and then looked at the rest of  my entourage.  "I just can't decide what you have more of, kids or groceries."

I have more than four gallons of milk on the average grocery trip!  Don't tell me it is that hard.  

I'm just going to pretend that nice older people are really bad at math and being nice.

*   *   *   *   *   

So I tried to find another graphic to go with this post - but the only pictures of kids in a grocery store that I could find had one or two kids - three at the most.  The only pictures of people shopping with more than three kids were Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  Which is totally what I look like when I go out shopping with my kids, so I didn't want anyone to get confused.

But I found this instead.  Enjoy.

p.s. I love that the adds that pop up when you watch this commercial are tips for a happy marriage.

Ummmm. . . Thank you?

Christmas letter from my 7-year-old:

Dear Mommy and Daddy,
You are the best at everything.
I hope you get what you want for Christmas.
My favorite thing about you is that you change your minds so much.
I also like that you forget that you changed your mind.
Love, Ian

Merry Christmas!

What happens while I make dinner

She comes to me while I'm making dinner:  "Mommy?" and her eyes are full of tears, "He won't let me hold his hand." 

Audible sigh from the other room. "I'm working."

Me: "Honey, his hands are busy right now.  Maybe you could stand quietly by him and put your hand on his shoulder."

Then her eyes lit up and she giggled this maniacal, evil little laugh and I got to see this:

Another long-suffering sigh from the boy. "Mo-o-om!"

Me: "Hang on a second.  I just have to get a  picture.. . . .Ok, I got it.. . . Lil' why don't you come in the kitchen with me and leave your brother alone?"

Her: "Ok!"

*  *  *  *  *

Scene: Coloring pictures and doing homework at the kitchen table.  Lil' girl is coloring her now-favorite princess, Cinderella.

Boy 2: "Cinderella is EVIL."
Girl 1: "Cinderella is NOT evil."
Boy 2: "Cinderella is Eeevil."
Girl 1: "No! Cinderella is not evil. She is a beautiful princess!"
Boy 2: "Cinderella is EVIL."
Girl 1: "No!"
Boy 2: "Cinderella is evil. Hunh?"

Boy 1: "No. . . see, Cinderella can't be evil because she's Cinderella."
Boy 2: "But she wants to be evil. Right?"
Boy 1: "Exactly.  She would be evil but she's Cinderella."
Boy 2: "Right.  She wants to be evil."
Boy 1: "Right, Mom? Right? Cinderella wants to be evil, she just can't"
Me: *Sigh*

This one is for Jennie

(So Jennie, remember how we were going to try and come hear your choir sing with the kids this Christmas?  We might not bring all the children.)

I turned on some Christmas music while cleaning up.

My two-year-old in her best angry voice:

"I don't like the people!  Those people who sing in their. . . happy clothes.
NO happy Christmas! I don't like the people who sing."

The Dark Side

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with parenting books.  I love knowing about what is going on with my kids developmentally and getting ideas of different things to try.  But I hate how preachy some of them get and how guilt inducing they can be.  Sometimes I think the underlying message is: "Do everything exactly the way we say or your child will turn into a psychotic killer - or a pole dancer - or a democrat."

And I've read a lot of those books.  (I'll send you a list if you're interested in my lit. review.) But, there are a few things that no parenting manual covers.  The underside of parenting, if you will.  Having children is the most amazing, wonderful, rewarding thing I've ever done.  I love my children more than words can express.  And they bring me such joy.  I love to just sit and watch them play - it is awesome.  But they also really piss me off sometimes.

I mean I sometimes get really, really angry.  As a rule, I'm not an angry person.  It is actually very difficult to make me angry enough to even say "piss off."  But it happens.  And it happens with my children more than anything else.

The thing is, I'm so invested in them.  It is hard to step back and not take their misbehavior personally - especially because sometimes they mean it personally.  They are MY kids.  They know exactly which buttons to push and when, they know every little pet peeve and how to just nudge it.  Hey look, Mommy's eye is twitching again!

And even more obnoxious, they are like me.  Those annoying habits I've been trying for years to hide, they flaunt.  They are stubborn in the ways that I am stubborn, they react badly to the same things I react badly to.  Partly genetic, partly learned, all difficult.

And I wish that more "What to expect.. . " books covered this.  Because it is okay.

It is normal.

There is nothing wrong with feeling very angry with your children.  It does not make you a bad person or a bad parent.  You are not failing because you are feeling something negative.

The trick with parenting - and life - is not how you feel.  It is how you ACT on how you feel.  Finding a way to release, control, respond to your feelings that is healthy.

And it won't always work, and you will find that you have reacted to a situation in a way that makes it worse.  What to do then?  Well, I have a lot of experience with this, I apologize.  I tell my children what I did wrong and why it was wrong and ask them to forgive me.  It is hard for me to not do this in an underhanded way: "I'm sorry I yelled, but if you would just stop . . .!"

As a parent, my job is to model responsible adult behavior.  Responsible adults recognize their mistakes.  They don't blame others or make excuses.  And then they move on and try to do better.  It will take them a long time to learn this.  It is STILL taking me a long time to learn this.

And that is okay too.