Ninja Powers Activated - Grocery Store Style

The store is always an adventure for us. It's almost never just a quick in-and-out trip to get a gallon of milk while the children follow obediently behind you while holding hands and humming sweetly. Oh no. It's nowhere near that.

Today we went to the store. We needed milk and bread, and I wanted to get a cake mix and frosting for the Princess' birthday. Per the norm, the second we got to the carts and saw that there weren't any with the little cars attached to the front for the kids to sit in, we had a small riot. The Princess cried, the Ninja shrieked and immediately started trying to get away from me. I set to the task of wrestling him into the shopping cart kid seat thing while explaining to the Princess that we couldn't stand out in the cold waiting for one of the car carts and we were just going to go in. After 5 minutes, the Ninja was safely buckled into the cart with the little seat belt tightened as far as I could get it, while he continued to yell and cry and scream his distaste to the general public. We went straight to the bakery to get the complimentary cookies, then spent a few minutes looking at the cakes while both kids ate their cookies. During this quiet time, the Princess impressed an elderly gentleman by saying "Excuse me" while walking around him. He came and told me that he was so impressed with her manners and was grateful that I had taught her well. This, of course, made me swell with pride as I thought "Yeah, my kids are awesome."

Shortly after this, I had to tell the Princess that she could not have a cake and donuts and cotton candy and popcorn at her birthday party, but just cake or cupcakes. She wasn't happy about this and continued to walk at a turtle's pace behind me in protest of my restrictive rules for her special day. We went to the cake aisle to see if I could perk up her spirits by letting her pick out what mix and frosting she wanted. It worked, but then the Ninja finished his cookie, and all hell broke loose. He found out that if he leans forward while trying to stand, that the seat belt will slip from around his midsection to around his thighs, then by sitting on the backrest and bending to hold onto the handle of the cart that he could maneuver his legs out as well. He did this while I was telling the princess which frosting we could and could not buy, and when I turned around I had a split second to register what was happening as the Ninja leapt across the 1 ft space from the cart and onto my chest. He mostly caught himself by grabbing my sweater, and by then I was able to grab him and avoid having him fall to the floor. I tried holding him for a few minutes while we continued shopping, but he kept throwing his large 2 year old frame to the point that I would have to put him down to grab anything. Each time I put him down, he would run down the aisle and away from me.

After the third time of him running away and me chasing him down and dragging him back, each time trying to put him back in the cart only for him to get out immediately, I decided to throw him on my shoulders. He wasn't a fan, and I spent the rest of the shopping trip holding his feet and legs around my neck with a vice like grip with one arm, while trying to put stuff in the cart with the other. Luckily, the Princess was being really good. About 2 minutes into this arrangement, the Ninja decided that it was to be a fight to the death to escape my evil clutches, and launched a full out assault on my head. He grabbed at my face and hair and pulled with all of his might while I tried to grab the last few things we needed before heading to the checkout lines. He almost got loose to climb down my back a couple of times, but I was able to weasel him back so that I could hold both feet around my neck. While loading up the groceries onto the belt, he pulled out a few more handfuls of hair out of my carefully constructed mom-bun and kept blinding me by covering up my eyes. The poor woman in front of me looked terrified, while the cashier looked astonished and highly amused as I struggled to get everything onto the belt and wrestled away a pack of Juicy Fruit from the Ninja's tiny hands. I finally get the cart unloaded and go up to the cashier while the Princess begs me from the floor to let her buy a treat and the Ninja continues his assault on my head. I apologize for the noise and proceed to pay for my goods. Of course as soon as I finish paying, the Princess insists that she will not move from her spot on the floor until I let her buy a treat, so I say "Fine, just put it up here now", but the dang Star Burst package is stuck! A good Samaritan behind me in line jumps to my rescue and gets the stuck candy out of the box so we can pay and finally get out of there.

By the time we get to my truck, my hair is sticking up and out and only half of it is in my mom-bun, I have red marks all over my face from the Ninja pulling on whatever skin he could grab, my head is throbbing, and my shoulders are exhausted and sore from carrying my giant toddler for the past 15 minutes. I wrestle the Ninja into his car seat, 3 minutes later finishing and going over to buckle in the Princess, and after quickly getting the groceries into the truck I am finally done. Free. Finished with that unholy task that is grocery shopping with toddlers. And I think to myself - how do people have more than 2 kids??? It's hard enough with one, ridiculously insane with two, I can't imagine how those women with 5-10 kids can do it! But I definitely have a respect for it! Now I'm going to go and turn on Disney Channel and veg out with the Princess while the Ninja naps.

First World Mommy Problems

I think I may do a new segment on here (because my blog is obviously big enough to do segments on, lol) called First World Mommy Problems, or FWMP. For my first FWMP post, I'm going to tell you a little bit about how my day went yesterday.

Over the last few months I've suddenly started getting really bad migraine headaches. A lot of them. Anyway, yesterday seemed like a good day to have one, so my head went to work on trying to keep my as useless as possible while the husband was at school. The house was a mess, the kids didn't sleep good, and the Princess was demanding on doing something fun. She wanted to go outside and finger paint, and I said no, not right now. Then she wanted to go to the store. Nope, I just need to keep my eyes closed. Then she wanted to play a game. Okay, got a game out, but she refused to play it without me. I begged and pleaded with her to let me rest until my headache was gone, but instead she grabbed my boots and threw them on me and said "Just put your shoes on, Mommy, and then we will go to the store and we will come right back home, okay? I promise." Luckily, it was Superman's short day at school so when he came home I informed him that he needed to take the Princess on a daddy-daughter date to get ice cream. That gave me a few hours with the Ninja, who was pretty calm and happy just playing with toys and watching The Lorax (it's the only show he sits for, so it's on a lot around here if ya couldn't tell.)

Moving forward a couple of hours, my headache finally was gone, and while the medicine I took left me feeling a little off, I still felt like I could survive a trip to the store. Telling the Princess of my plan, she shrieks with delight and flits over to the door. I get her and the Ninja all packed up, start driving, and see that Superman has left me with an empty gas tank and only 4 miles left on the tank. Grand. Quick detour over to the gas station (barely made it!), quick fill-up, and then we're back on the road to the store. It's about 5-10 minutes away. Well I pull into a parking space, turn off the car and say "We're here! Let's go inside!" ....Nothing. I look back and see that the Ninja is fast asleep. Okay, he's young enough that I'm not too concerned with that - he can sleep in the cart. But then I look right behind my seat and see that the Princess is also fast asleep! Since we were already here, I went to the back door of the car and tried to gently shake her awake. Didn't work. I lifted her head from her chest, wiped off all of the drool and the hair stuck to the drool off of her face, and then tried talking to her to see if she would wake up. Nothing. So I put a hand on either side of her head and gently pushed it back and forth. This one normally works to get some sort of response, even if it's just a growl to leave her alone, but after playing Ping-Pong with her head for a bit, she just sighed and stayed asleep! I tried tickling her, poking her, prying her eyelids open, blowing in her face - this girl was out of it. I called Superman and had a little chat, called my Mom and had a chat with her, and then decided that it was too hot to sit out in the parking lot and wait for them to wake up, so I had to drive all the way home and drag the sleeping kiddos back into the house and deposit them on the couches.

About an hour later, they both woke up and the first thing the Princess said to me was "Mommy, you were supposed to take me to the store! Why didn't we go to the store?" to which I calmly explained that we tried to go to the store but then she fell asleep so we had to go home. Yeah, she screamed at me. Not just a little disappointed cry, but a full on "How could you do this to me" freak-out. (Sigh)

And that, my friends, is todays First World Mommy Problem - driving your kids all the way to the store, only to have them fall asleep and have to turn around to go home. Anyone else have this happen to them all the time? Be sure to comment with some of your FWMPs!

Imaginary Friend

A lot of children make up imaginary friends. Usually it seems to be a random child-like friend, or sometimes it's a character from a TV show (I have a niece who's imaginary friend is Isabella from Phineas and Ferb). My daughter, the Princess, picked one that I really should have seen coming but didn't. Over the last few months, her Prince Charming has been accompanying us whenever we leave the house. She'll inform me of where he sits in the car, will tell me if he has his seatbelt on or not, will talk and argue with him (her fingers and toes also talk and argue so this doesn't concern me) and she would even go so far as to hold his hand in the store. Then at home she would ask me to tell the "may-eed" story (married story) and she would act out everything I said with her "Prince". Recently, however, he's kind of disappeared - or so I thought. I was tucking her into bed and I saw that her regular pillow was turned the wrong way on the bed, then she had her glow-worm thing and her baby next to the pillow, and then she had her little decorative pillow that she sleeps on sitting on the very edge of the bed. I suggested we put the worm and the baby on the other pillow so that she wouldn't fall off the bed while she slept, and she screamed "No! That's where Prince sleeps!" I was a little shocked, because I thought that Prince had sort of phased out, but apparently he's still there. She tells me every day how much she loves Prince and how they will get married someday. It's sweet, but I'm still a little disturbed by her having him sleep in her bed. I have to keep reminding myself that she's only 3 1/2, so it obviously doesn't mean the same thing that it would to, say, a teenager, and that it's all innocent. What about you? Did you have an imaginary friend growing up, or do you have kids with imaginary friends now? Tell me about them in the comments!

What the Miley???

I have to admit - I've never been a Miley Cyrus fan. She just bugged me, but I ignored her and stayed away from anything with her in it (except for Bolt - her voice worked in that roll and the Princess loves that show) but just now I was perusing other blogs when I saw one with a link to a Miley Cyrus music video for "We Can't Stop". Yeah...I was going to post it on here so that you guys can understand what I'm talking about, but I just couldn't do that to you. WTH happened to her??? And why the heck do all of the young Disney stars have to be so insane when they "graduate" from Disney? I mean, she went from cute-but-mildly-annoying-young-Disney-star-with-good-prospects-for-the-future to....well this

By the way she makes this face probably 17 times in the music video, like "Yeah, I'm bad, I dress skanky and stick out my tongue while pulling my tough face". I have no idea, but it's disturbing and has placed her on my list of people that I would like to see get punched in the face. What happened to classy girls as role models? Now we have this??? I'd like to think that even if I were still an impressionable teenager that I wouldn't be roped into this ridiculousness, because it's just gross.

Ugh, now I just feel icky. Let's focus on someone that I absolutely love - and that is Zooey Deschanel

 

 

TOTALLY have a girl crush on her - she is just so quirky, beautiful (seemingly effortlessly too), love her singing voice, and I haven't seen anything that I haven't loved her in. And through it all she stays classy and classic. I love that if I look up pictures of her on Google then I don't have to make sure the Princess isn't around for fear of what she might see. (I had to literally chase her from the room to find that Miley picture above...)

 

Please people, if you're going to waste time watching people, make them nice, classy people. Not people who COULD be classy but choose to show just how "grown-up" and "bad" they are. I'm pretty sure that people could do that without looking like complete whore-ish idiots. Be like Zooey. She's awesome. Don't be like Miley. I'm pretty sure she's not from this planet.

 

Okay that's all for now. Rant over. :)

 

M.

Fairy Puke

 This is what happens when, after not getting enough sleep for days, you decide to throw caution to the wind, turn on a movie, and try to take a nap while the young ones sit dormant in front of the beloved television. Only that last part doesn't happen...but this does. It's like a fairy puked all over my living room. There are tiny tiny TINY little gems all over, paper flowers, sewing needles, lots of thread, paint, colored craft wire, picture frames, photo albums, and lots and lots and lots of buttons that were previously organized by color. Among other things. What isn't pictured is over 200 blank CD's that we've been holding on to for years but never really use that were spread throughout the house.

 

 

 

I thought that the fact that the Princess's fairy wings happened to be placed strategically among the wreckage. Of course she had nothing to do with it - she claims very boldly that this was all the work of the Ninja. While, yes, he can open the closet door (a nightmare because he's only been walking for about a month) I don't think he knows how to unlatch the craft box.

 

Always the opportunistic mother that I am, however, after putting both kids in a nice long time out while I picked up the tiny gems and put the craft box back together (okay, the Ninja was in the high chair eating lunch, but the Princess was) I brought the Princess out of time out and informed her that she was going to help me sort the buttons into the correct sections. She was thrilled about this and only got distracted about 17 times. However, she did very well organizing the colored buttons into their places and was just so darn proud of herself when we were done that I had to tell her good job...even if my eye was still twitching from the mess. On the bright side, however, I had actually been needing to clean out that closet and reorganize my craft crap for a while (the vacuum doesn't fit in the closet anymore - there's a lot of stuff not pictured...) so at least I got that done. *sort-of smiley face*

 

Ah kids...never ever EVER a dull moment...eeeeevvvveeeeeeerrrrrrr...........

 

M.

Truth of The Mess Is...

Okay, as I mention in my "About Me" section, I'm a mom. I'd like to think I'm a decent one too - not Pinterest Perfect by any means, but I get the job done. There is one job, however, that often seems to never be done - CLEANING! I am having a hard time understanding how parents of multiple children are able to keep their houses spick and span sparkly clean all the time! I just have my 2 kids, The Princess and The Ninja (3 1/2 and 1 respectively) yet I can't seem to keep up with them, especially the Ninja since he started walking.

Just since this morning, the Ninja has emptied my kitchen towel drawer 3 times, pulled out all of my pots and pans, climbed on top of my computer desk and stole my pizza while my back was turned (resulting in pieces of half chewed pizza all over in the carpet from when he ran away from me), ripped up 3 pages of the Princess's coloring book, pulled all of the DVD's out of the shelf twice, and has emptied about half of the toy box and thrown all of his toys in various parts of the house while running around squealing. Then you add the Princess into the mix, who insists that every item of her pretend kitchen stash has to be emptied and on the floor to have a tea party (the Ninja threw those too) and emptied half of the wipes pretending to change her baby's diaper (which the Ninja also ripped up and spread around). By the time I get one mess cleaned up, there are 4 more waiting for me.

Of course then you have the people who say "A messy house is a sign of happy children" or "Don't mind the mess, the children are making memories" and stuff like that. Well...that's okay to a point, yes, but there's a point where that can't really pass anymore. Like when that mess includes things that children are slipping/tripping on or eating that they shouldn't be. Then it's probably not just a "sweet little memory mess" or whatever. Like if I don't sweep under the Ninja's high chair at least 12 times a day, then he goes back and goes on a treasure hunt to find whatever he dropped earlier that he can now try to choke on. Or when the Princess decides to take off her Barbie's shoes or tiaras and the Ninja thinks "Hmm, I should chew on that" then it's probably a good idea to pick up. And you never really know when they've done something like that because if you leave the big stuff out then the little things are hidden to you but available to them.

Ugh, there's no winning. You either stress to keep a clean house and your kids are grouchy because you keep cleaning up their messes, or you stress over a dirty house because you have no idea what is in that pile of toys plus the added stress of a husband who comes home from work and says "So what have you guys done today?" (which is a very dangerous question to ask a stay at home mom, just a fair warning). Anyone else feel the same way? Am I just crazy? Please tell me that someone out there empathizes with me!

M.