You think you're tired?

This post I dedicate to all the first time moms out there.
When you’re a first time mom, you want everything to be perfect. You follow all the “tips for raising great kids” found in those annoying magazines. You call the doctor for every sniffle or fever, and your kid will not even taste the likes of sugar or junk food until he/she is at least 2. And even then, it’ll be “just a treat” reserved for “once in a while”, on a sunny day when there’s rainbows and joy for miles. Your child is always clean, and dry. You take walks, sing songs, do crafts, read books, and maybe even join some group or activity like gymnastics for infants(what is the purpose of this again?) or kindermusic (again, the purpose?). You read somewhere that if they listen to classical music, they’ll be smart. So you stock up on Bach, and Beethoven. Everything is structured and life is just so wonderful and fulfilling now. You mature to a new level of responsibility. You begin to lecture your childless friends on things like structure and schedules, growing up and “settling down”. Then you do the unthinkable….decide to have another.
Transition from the first to the second child is a bit nuts. There’s things that are good, and then there’s things aren’t so good. You have a bit of an idea what you’re doing this time around, so there’s less calls to the doctor, less worry, and more of a relaxed feeling. You already know that you won’t sleep at first, but it soon passes, and that sometimes they cry and you just don’t know why. But there seems to be less of a schedule, and it seems harder to stick to. There’s less walking and singing, and reading books. It seems a bit harder to find the time now. Beethoven and Bach get replaced by Time Life Kid Songs CD’s and Sesame Street Jams. You end up getting Happy Meals more often, and even start to use those sweets as a bribe or reward for good behavior in the store or at the doctor’s office. Still, it’s pretty nice and even though you don’t really get to see those childless friends of your, you really like the way things are. Besides, they’ll have kids soon enough, and then you can rekindle that friendship at play dates and birthday parties. All in all, kids are pretty fun, and having a family still ROCKS!
One day you’re sitting on your couch at the end of a long day wondering when and where you lost your mind. You used to be multi-tasker, but somehow, it just doesn’t seem to work anymore. The house is still a mess, and you haven’t watched that show you used to like in ages. You haven't hung out with adults or left the house to do somethig other than errands in months. What is free time again? You seem to have forgotten. You haven’t’ combed your hair today and your lucky you even got to shower. You think about hanging out with your husband, but you reek of Tilex, and desperately want to defunk yourself. On your way to the stairs, you make your way through the kitchen. You refill the candy dish, you’ll be needing that tomorrow. You put away what’s left of dinner, and set the coffee pot for 0:dark thirty. You clean the crayon off the walls. That was the latest project that kept them quiet just long enough for you to throw something edible together and call it dinner. And just when you think you’re home free, and that hot relaxing shower is steps away…..the THIRD child wakes up thanks to teething.
Better put a few extra scoops in the coffee pot.

P.S. This is how you get diner done now….wanna go for #4?

Dinner Time Distraction

Shopping at 10pm isn't so bad after all

After my 3 kids had already spent most of the morning fighting, whining, and acting like zoo animals, I decided to take them grocery shopping. Why you ask? What on this Earth would posses me to do that? I don’t quite know. I suspect that I must’ve hit my head earlier that morning and suffered some sort of brain damage. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Naturally when we got there, there were no more race car shopping carts left. For those that don’t know, let me explain: these are the carts that have a car attached to the front of them. Meaning I can strap my youngest into the cart seat, and my middle one into the little car. This means everyone is happy and more importantly, contained. Well, like I said, I must’ve suffered brain damage, because instead of turning around and going home, I went on in. I got one of those regular carts. I put my youngest into the cart seat, and my middle one in the basket where the food goes. It seemed that it would work just fine.

We made our way through the store with a minimal amount of yelling and crying. The baby had a melt down half way through and I had to carry her the rest of the time, but other than that, it seemed that this trip just might work out after all. As I rounded the corner of the very last isle, almost triumphant, I could see the finish line nearing. I began my victory dance, only to slip in some sort of puddle on the floor. “What is it?” I thought to myself. “Why is there a trail of drips coming from my cart?”

Horror struck when I recognized the familiar smell of “Tilex Soap Scum Remover”. Yes, that’s right. My 2 year old had not only opened it up, but poured it all over my groceries. “They’re clean mommy” he said to me. He’s so helpful.

Since I’m 26 years old and crying isn’t so much an option anymore, I did what anyone would do. I turned red with embarrassment, and spent the next 10 minutes cleaning it up. You see, when you spill toxic chemicals on your groceries, the store will not let you exchange them for new, clean, chemical free groceries. They pretty much want you to keep the ones you already have and quickly be on your way.

When I finally got to the check out, not so triumphant anymore, the check out girl was very annoyed. And why shouldn’t she be? She had to take every pack of meat that I had, back to the meat dept. and have it re-tagged and re-priced. The ink on the labels runs when you pour cleaning products on them. This took quite a while, and all the people behind me in line started to get impatient. The lady directly behind me finally asked what the hold up was. She thought it was just a regular old riot when I told her. She had raised 4 boys, so she said she understood. At least that lightened the mood a little.

When I got home, I spent half an hour cleaning the rest of my groceries off. I had to throw away 14 dollars worth of roasts, and a few other things. My cabinets still reek of Tilex, and worst of all, my bathrooms are dirty. I don’t have any cleaner to clean them with.

Next time we’ll eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner.

I used to hate going out late in the evening after the kids are in bed. I'm usually too tired by then, and you never know what kind of weirdos are out at that time either. It used to seem like such a hassle to do it that late. But I learned a valuable lesson that day, shopping at 10 pm isn't so bad after all.