I Accidentally Stole a Watermelon

I know what you're thinking. "How can you accidentally steal a watermelon?!" Well, I'll tell you in a minute. My husband asked the same question when I sent him a message last week asking him to go by the grocery store and pay for it. He e-mailed our family the conversation he thought he would have with the manager. Our family thought this was hilarious so, against my better judgement, I've reproduced this hypothetical conversation below. I hope it brings you a chuckle.

Hubby: My wife accidentally stole a watermelon from your store this morning.
Manager: Oh yeah? How did that happen?
Hubby: I have no idea. My wife told me to go pay for it.
Manager: So she can get out of jail?
Hubby: I don't think so.
Manager: We don't have a way to ring that up.
Hubby: Silence.
Manager: How much was it?
Hubby: I have no idea.
Manager: What was the bar code?
Hubby: You've got to be kidding!
Manager: What kind of melon was it?
Hubby: I have no idea.
Manager: Are you sure she "accidentally" stole just one?
Hubby: She only mentioned one.
Manager: I guess she got it from the box outside?
Hubby: I don't think that would be an accident.
Manager: I don’t think so either.
Hubby: So how do you want to do this?
Manager: I have no idea!

So this is what happened...
After an hour at the library and an hour at WalMart (where I had to park half a mile from the store in 98-degree weather) with two kids, I stopped at Krogers. I was pushing one of those buggies with the car on the front. The kids were "driving" and honking at the other customers. I put the watermelon under the buggy to leave room in the buggy for shopping bags (save the planet!), strawberries, cherries, lettuce, bananas, onions, tofu, brisket, chicken, cheese, 3 gallons of milk, and eggs. After unloading (what I thought was all) my groceries onto the conveyor belt, making sure there were still two kids in the "car," and handing over my loyalty card so as not to be overcharged $30, I began sacking my groceries. (I was excited to do this because it meant there was no way the brisket was gonna end up on top of the bananas.) I ran my credit card through the machine, signed the electronic dotted line, and went outside to load stuff in the car. I got half the groceries unpacked when I saw that @%#*$% watermelon. No way was I gonna leave the groceries (including the butter and chocolate I had gotten at WalMart) and take two kids BACK into Krogers to pay for a $7 watermelon.

My sweet hubby did swing by Krogers and pay for the watermelon :)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Motherhood is an interesting journey, to say the least. I don't think anything prepares you for it. There are moments you hope you'll never forget and some you wish you could. Here are a few of mine.

(I've been saving this idea, so these stories happened a while ago but they're still funny...now.)

The good...

There are so many things I could write here. That soft, downy head. Little fingers wrapped around one of yours. A toothless grin. A little head on your shoulder. Hearing a sweet voice call you "Mama."

The bad...

One night Jesse woke up crying. I snuck into the bedroom, groped around in the dark, and plucked him from his bed. I hugged him up to me and slipped my left arm under his bottom to support him. To my surprise I felt warm, soft flesh. I cried "Jesse! Where's your diaper?!" His diaper was in his bed, nice and dry, so I put it back on him. Then I put some shorts on him (I'm a fast learner) and ran back to the living room to fetch hubby. I nursed Jesse while hubby stripped the bed. After Jesse went back to sleep, I pulled the rug out of the bedroom so I could work on the puddle.

The ugly...

I heard Jesse wake up from his nap one day and went to get him. I walked into the bedroom and discovered Jesse had been face painting. We don't have any face paints. I'll leave it at that.

Motherhood Olympics

With the Winter Olympics in progress, I've been thinking about some new events for 2014. Here are my thoughts so far...

Diaper Derby
In the qualifying round, each mother must change a dirty diaper. Points will be awarded for cleanliness, form, and speed (timing will begin when the mother picks up the child and will end when the child is fully dressed). Points will be deducted if the diaper is put on backwards and/or not securely fastened. The top 10 mothers will advance to the final round.

In the final round, mothers will change diapers in the back seat of a car. Points will be awarded as described in the qualifying round.


Tug-of-War
Each mother will attempt to settle a fight between siblings over a toy. Points will be awarded for speed and originality.


Tandem Feeding
Each mother will feed a baby while eating her own lunch. Points will be awarded for speed and accuracy. Points will be deducted for putting utensils in the wrong mouth.


Grocery Shopping
Each mother will be given a grocery list and two children. One child will be between the ages of 18 and 24 months, the other between the ages of 4 and 7 years. Points will be awarded for speed and accuracy. Points will be deducted for purchasing items not on the list. Mothers can earn bonus points by returning plastic bags to be recycled or by bringing reusable bags.

Do you think the International Olympic Committee would be interested?

Desperate Housewives

I've never seen the show and don't know what it's about, but I wanted to borrow the title. A lot of people think we live lives of leisure. You know - lounging on the couch with a good book, munching on bonbons, sipping champagne - that kind of thing. Well, maybe some do. But most of us are also stay-at-home moms. Our days are filled with changing diapers, kid-wrangling, cleaning, grocery shopping, refereeing, cooking, washing little hands and faces, laundry, cleaning, giving piggy-back rides, picking up toys, reading books, and cleaning. (Yes, there’s a lot of cleaning.)

Sometimes I get to escape for a little while. Once in a while I walk to the mailbox by myself. I get my teeth cleaned twice a year (20 minutes each way with nothing but the radio making noise, a few moments to look at a magazine in peace). Occasionally I ask my mother-in-law to babysit while I get groceries (no kids crawling in and out of buggies, no shoes getting kicked off in WalMart, nobody asking me to buy something on every aisle). When the kids are asleep, I might curl up with Agatha Christie or Ngaio Marsh (ignore the laundry, forget the dishes, no 18-month-old crying because his ball rolled under the couch, no 5-year-old asking me what M-a-d-a-g-a-s-c-a-r spells). When I’m really lucky, I get to go on a date with my husband!

Most days I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I would love to lounge on the couch with a good book, munching on bonbons, sipping champagne (actually, lounge on the couch with a good book, a bag of chocolate chips, and a glass of milk), but I’ve got laundry to cook, supper to bathe, kids to fold. You know what I mean.

In the Blink of an Eye

I can't believe it's been almost 5 years since my first child was born. (My daughter's birthday is Wednesday.) The last 5 years flew by faster than 2 years of graduate school. Here's Olivia soon after she was born.

Here she is when she was about a year old. She's changed so much. She's been walking for 3 months, has several teeth, and knows a lot of words (although she doesn't say many).

This is at her second birthday party. She knows some of her numbers!

For her third birthday she got a tricycle. Unfortunately, it's hard for her to pedal it on our dirt road. She now has a bicycle, too, but it's also hard for her to pedal.

At 4 years old she's such a grown-up little girl (sometimes!). She's a good mother to her babies.

Now my baby is almost 5. She's doing kindergarten work. She can read fairly well (except for having trouble with words like "gnashed" and "pterodactyl") and can count to 100 with just a little help. She has a very active imagination.

It really is amazing how fast they grow up. Watching them evolve from helpless infants into independent little people is awesome. I bet the next 5 years go even faster.

Shower Shenanigans

That's it. I'm going to quit taking showers. At least not after my husband leaves for work or before he returns. It seems every time I take a shower, disaster strikes.

To the best of my recollection, the first major ordeal was when Olivia cut her hair. I think it was about a year ago. She would have been 4 or close to it. She had NEVER had a haircut. One day while I was showering, she took her little scissors and cut bangs and shortened the hair framing her face. I was speechless. Luckily, she did a pretty good job.

Another time, Jesse played Picasso on the end of the bookcase. And on the wall. The bookcase and wall are off-white; the crayon was purple. I didn't even try to wash it off because it'll probably happen again. I figure I'll scrub it off or paint over it before we sell the house.

More recently I got out of the shower to discover Jesse had eaten half an apple. You might wonder why this made the list of "ordeals." I wouldn't have been upset if he'd just eaten half an apple. He had gnawed on 6 or 7 apples for a grand total of half an apple down the little red lane. We had apple juice that night.

Last week Olivia poured a tea kettle full of water all over Jesse (don't worry - it wasn't hot). In the living room. Jesse was drenched from head to toe. Water was all over the recliner and carpet. And Olivia had tried to tell me "Jesse had a diaper leak."

Yesterday I discovered Olivia had cut Jesse's hair. I'm not sure when it happened, but it must have happened when I was in the shower.

I don't spend a lot of time on my appearance. I don't wear makeup. My mother cuts my hair about once a year. Some days I don't even take the time to comb my hair. So I didn't think spending 5 or 10 minutes a day on the most fundamental personal hygiene was too much to ask. Apparently I was wrong.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Olivia may not look much like me, but she is definitely my child. Sometimes she says things and I feel like I'm listening to myself. I've noticed we both use "otherwise" quite a bit. Olivia also breastfeeds her baby doll. The doll sleeps in Olivia's bed or in a crib nearby. She also has a sling to carry her baby.

She sees lots of candy and cereal at the store that she wants me to buy. Sometimes it's something I don't mind getting, but more often than not I have to tell her "that has lots of artificial flavors and colors in it." The other day I heard her ask my parents if their bread had articifial flavors and colors in it. I couldn't help laughing!

We had to replace our shower recently because it was leaking. My husband took the pieces of the old one outside and was wondering what to do with them. Olivia told him he should recycle them.

Like me (and her daddy), Olivia loves books. For the past couple of years we've been going to the library almost every week and checking out around 8 to 15 books. Saturday I checked out about a dozen for her. We returned close to half of them this evening because we'd already read them several times (in just 3 days!). I remember one day (a while ago) Olivia was supposed to be taking a nap. I went to check on her and she had fallen asleep in a pile of books. There were probably a dozen on her bed and on the floor. I went straight to the living room and told hubby she is definitely our child and sent him to have a look. Then I took a picture. I've got it around here somewhere...

For better or worse, kids are sponges that soak up our speech and behaviors. We would do well to remember this. I want my children to grow up thinking breastfeeding is normal. I want recycling to be second nature to them. I want them to love books and learning. I want them to be patient with and kind to others. It will be much easier to teach them these values (and others) if I practice them myself.

Supermom

On more than one occasion I've been sleeping with Jesse lying right beside me (or on me) and Olivia has woken me up to tell me she wants breakfast. I'd have had to wake Jesse up to move. Meanwhile, hubby was snoozing away. When I asked her why she didn't ask Daddy to get her some breakfast, she said "He's sleeping."

Was I angry? Of course not. Why would I want to sleep a little longer? I'd had a good 5 hours of sleep. Olivia knew that Jesse gets me up several times during the night and, therefore, must have thought it would be easier to wake me up since I'm used to it. She might have even suspected that I require less sleep to function.

The other day hubby was writing a letter to include with some pictures I was sending to his aunt. Olivia was playing at the kitchen table where he was writing. I was in the bathroom, hands in the toilet, washing out a dirty diaper. Olivia walked through the bedroom and into the bathroom and asked me to turn on the computer speakers. When I asked her why she didn't ask Daddy (who was sitting right beside her!) to turn the speakers on, she said "Because he's too busy."

Was I aggravated? Of course not. All I had to do was finish spraying off the dirty diaper, wring it out, drop it in the diaper pail, flush the toilet, and wash and dry my hands. I don't even have to think about it; I just turn on autopilot. You may think all hubby would have had to do was put down his pen. Wrong. I know what an undertaking it is when he writes a letter. Olivia's request would have completely broken his concentration.

Joking aside, Olivia is much more likely to ask me for help than her daddy. When Jesse wakes up in the middle of the night, it's me he's looking for. When they get hurt, no one can comfort them like I can. There are some things mothers just do better. I've often told Olivia that no one loves her like her mama. I carried these children for 9 months, gave birth to them, nourished them, and cared for them 24 hours a day. No one can take care of them better than I can.

Faster than a streaking toddler, more powerful than a stomach virus, and able to leap tall building block towers in a single bound. I am Supermom!

Baby's First Year

Today is Jesse's first birthday. I can't believe it's been a year since he was born. At that time all he could do was sleep, cry, nurse, and dirty his diapers. It's amazing to me how much babies change, grow, and learn in their first year of life. Jesse has learned to smile, laugh, and "talk." Although he doesn't say them perfectly, he can say "mama," "ball," "balloon," "bite," "dog," and "woof." He learned to hold up his head, roll over, sit, creep, crawl, stand, walk, and climb up the couch. As he gained more mobility he was able to explore more of his world and explore it faster. He's gotten six teeth (and learned not to bite Mama!), grown from 8 lb, 12 oz, to 20 lb, and from 22.25 inches to 28 inches. He's learned to hold toys, get his hand to his mouth, and get a spoon to his mouth. He can play peek-a-boo and patty-cake, pat his sister, give hugs, and throw balls (and anything else he can pick up).

As Jesse's mother, I'm proud of and impressed with how much he's grown and learned in the last year. I feel blessed to have had him, so I've done my best to keep him healthy and happy. At the same time, I'm a little sad that my baby isn't as much of a baby anymore. I've enjoyed his first year (well, not the sleep deprivation), but now that it's over I'll try to enjoy the next one...and the next one...and the next one...

Here's Jesse the day he was born.

And here he is today. (Still my baby!)

What a day

I am so exhausted that I can't see straight. One child has a high fever and puked red juice and grapes all over my parents carpet. Another child has a mild fever and two teeth just breaking the gums. Of course, she doesn't want to be outdone by her brother so she's puking all over the carpet too. This is a result of her over eating everything in sight. The third child is fine, but he's warm and I have a sneaking suspicion that he might not be feeling good as well.



Some days as a mother are just hard. Just honest to goodness back breaking, exhausting work. I am covered in puke, but haven't had the energy to change and I've been scrubbing said puke out of the carpet all day. I need a break. But, I'm a mom and this is what we do. I'm sitting here typing this rant and I'm listening to my daughter cry because she's feeling ignored since I'm not holding her. I want to cry, but as soon as I look at her she breaks into a huge grin and her gap toothed smile makes me smile too.

I love my children. Yes, it's hard to have three small children. Some days are harder than others. But, everyday is filled with so much love. My pukey child only wants me to hold him and snuggle him. He hates the cold washcloths I'm using to bring down his fever, but he trusts me when I say it'll help him feel better and allows me to lay the cold cloth on him. I am so tired but I feel so loved that I will find the strength to get through this day so when I lay down tonight I will know that I did my best in caring for my sick kids.

Mother's Day is coming up and I want to remind everyone that moms are special every day. Not just on that Sunday in May. We all work so hard and I want to tell every one of you that I'm proud of you. It's not easy to be a mom. It's long hours and selfless dedication, but the rewards are great and it takes a strong woman to be a good mom. Happy early Mother's Day and happy late Earth day!

Motherhood

I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about today. I've been so busy taking care of my sick kids that I hadn't given it much thought. Olivia got a cold early last week. Jesse came down with it a couple days later. Now my husband has it. I narrowly escaped catching it myself. Not to pat myself on the back, but I started thinking about how important (and undervalued) mothers are. I couldn't get sick. Who would have taken care of everyone else?

My job is far from glamorous. I don't get a paycheck or vacation time. An 8-month-old doesn't have a snooze button. I can't remember the last time I finished a meal without getting up at least once. I've had every body fluid on me at one time or another. I'm responsible for two little people. It's my job to feed them, bathe them, teach them, love them, correct them - mother them. The other day I was reading yet another headline about the job shortage in America. I wondered if anyone else thought "What would happen if mothers stayed home with their children?" For one thing, that would free up a lot of jobs for men and single women. More importantly, it would reunite mothers with their children. It seems strange to me that lots of women go to work so they can pay someone else to care for their children. I found some quotes this afternoon that I'd like to share with you...

“What is home without a mother?” - Alice Hawthorne

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her." - George Washington

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother." - Abraham Lincoln

"The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother — which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician." - Sydney J. Harris

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute." – G. K. Chesterton

A Mother is Born

I took an amazing trip four years ago. I took a journey into motherhood. The year after we were married, I announced to my husband I was pregnant. I was excited and scared. I devoured information about pregnancy and natural childbirth, scrutinized my changing body, reveled in those first kicks, and traced the little baby parts in my belly, trying to guess whether I was feeling an arm or a leg. After nine months of waiting the work began. There’s a reason they call it “labor.” Giving birth is the hardest (and most rewarding) thing I’ve ever done. Time ceased to exist when the contractions became difficult. I took them one at a time. After nine hours of labor we had a healthy baby girl. I finally got to meet the miracle that had been growing inside me, touch the little feet that had been jabbing me, and kiss the cheek of the child who made me a mother.