Shopping Flashback

My good friend Pam just posted about her nightmare shopping trip she experienced yesterday with her darling 3 year old - and it reminded me of the good times I had when trying to shop with little ones.

If I were to add up all the bad shopping excursions that involved my small children, me--and a lot of tears - I could write a novel. But, one of my favorite nightmare stories involved not only me and my kids - but my sweet sis, Jilly, and her newborn.

We lived by each other for about a year when Jay was 3, Savvy and Aussie were just over a year and Jilly had a newborn. For some reason, Jilly and I had a dream of what sisters should be doing to spend quality time together - and it involved shopping. We would attempt this on a regular basis and it never turned out good. Of course, each time we planned a shopping expedition - the last fiasco had been mostly forgotten.

On one particular day, we thought it would be a great idea to take the chillens to Roberts craft store. I mean, really, what better place to take 4 small children -then to a store that has lots of breakable stuff?

With a double stroller, regular stroller and a hand for Jay to hold - we headed into the crafting abyss. We looked around for about 15 minutes - and then Jay broke something and started to cry. Not to be outdone, Jilly's newborn started to cry. The crying reminded the twins that they hated their stroller - so the arching of backs and whining started--which inevitably led to crying mixed with blood curdling screeching.

Ah. Good times.

Being the alert and wise(?) mothers that we were back then, Jilly and I figured out that this shopping trip wasn't meant to be. We made a beeline for the front of the store--loaded the crying children into their car seats--buckled ourselves into our seat belts--looked at each other and burst into tears. We sat & cried big, salty tears in the parking lot of Roberts for quite sometime. It was then we noticed that the crying & screaming in the back seat had ended. The kids were staring at us like we had sprouted two heads.

Thankfully, we didn't take this as a sign to go back into the store and continue shopping. Instead we stopped at Wendy's, bought the toddlers all a 5 piece chickie nugget, me a big diet coke and Jilly a Sprite (no hard stuff for that girl)--and headed home planning our next shopping trip that would definitely be better than the one we had just experienced.

The Facts of Life

Yesterday, Savvy was petting Elvis and asked, "Mom, where is Elvis' belly button?"

"Cats don't have belly buttons," I replied.

"Mom, they have to have belly buttons, how else would they have babies?" she answered.

Oh brother! Is it time for THAT talk already? With Jay, I totally passed the buck to DH and he did a great job. Guess I'll just inform him that since he did such a good job the first time around--the deed is all his.

Much Ado About Nothing

Jay, our resident drama queen, is playing "Beatrice" in Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing" at school. DH has a white board in his office (right by the very computer I am typing on) and I just looked up and noticed that Jay had written a few of her favorite quotes from the play.

I love what her favorite Beatrice quotes are:

"Speak, count! Tis your cue!"

"I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue!"

"The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry ... nor well, but civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion."

And my favorite: "Speak cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither!"

The Sunday Funnies (Conference Edition)

Two undeniable proofs that my children are indeed prodigies of a sports nut.

This morning, just before conference started -- Savvy said to Jay, "At halftime will you jump on the trampoline with me?"

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I printed off some fun conference activities for the kids to do while listening to conference today. One of those activities was to write in the name of our newly appointed apostle, Elder D. Todd Christofferson. I told the kids to watch for him because he would be speaking today. When Elder Christofferson was announced to give his talk, the kids hurried to try and write his name in the appropriate spot (before it disappeared off the tv screen). His name is rather long - and so Aussie informed us he was just going to write "D-Todd". DH informed him that Elder Christofferson is an apostle not a baseball player - with some gentle encouragement (i.e. threats) Aussie changed his answer.

Luigi and the Pirate

My closest neighborhood grocery store is not my favorite place to go. Their meat department smells. bad. Produce? Not fresh. They never seem to have enough cashiers. And the store itself is always a mess. I try to avoid shopping there if it is at all possible. But, inevitably I end up there every Saturday night for some forgotten item that our family can't do without till Monday.

Tonight was no different. I needed tinfoil and saran wrap. Of course, I had just returned from a grocery store that I love--but I had neglected to get those two items. It was a necessary evil that I go to Smitty's. Luckily, my two favorite baggers--Luigi and the Pirate made this shopping excursion more pleasant than usual.

For some time now, a sixtyish Luigi has been bagging my groceries. I hate to stereotype him - but let's face it - he's short, Italian, and has a bushy mustache - he is totally Luigi. In fact, all he needs is a pair of overalls and a green shirt and he could be Luigi for next Halloween. He's also quite friendly, and while I've never heard him say, "Mama Mia" - I know it's on the tip of his tongue

Now, the pirate is a new character at Smitty's. I hadn't seen him until last Saturday. He is a man in his 70's with a gold stud in each ear. Tonight whilst shopping, I was on the phone with my dear sister, Jilly, and I told her that he is either a pirate or a person of a delicate persuasion.

Jilly then said, "Did you know pirates are real?"

"Yes, I'm staring at one right now," I replied.

Jilly then said, "No, I mean pirates are truly back to pillaging and terrorizing the open seas." (she read about it in some article).

Of course, the question remains, why in the world would a pirate be bagging groceries at a second rate grocery store--when he could be making millions at sea? Maybe it's the off-season? Retirement? Whatever the reason, one can only hope Johnny Depp follows the trend.

A Letter to Mr. Murphy

Dear Mr. Murphy:
Even though I find you and your laws quite annoying, it seems like I obey them on a regular basis. Especially, in regards to washing my van, cleaning up after Elvis, general housekeeping, mopping my floor - and parenting.

Murphy's Law, Case Study #1--The Van: If I wash it, it will rain. Not just any rain, but one of those filthy mudstorms. The kind of rain that it takes running your van through twice just to get it looking clean. I should offer my services to any state in drought like conditions--just fly me out, loan me a car to wash - and you'll have the ark a floatin' in no time.

Murphy's Law, Case Study #2--It takes a Village: If it becomes necessary to raise my voice at my children (who are we kidding - you know I mean a full throttle yell), inevitably a window will be open or someone (like the home teachers) will be knocking at my door. Can you say awkward?

Murphy's Law, Case Study #3--A House of Order: When I finally decide to catch up on my laundry, and I've just folded the final towel to add to the mountain -- someone (most likely the girl in the neighborhood with a maid and plenty of time on her hands) will ring the doorbell and want to come in and visit.

Murphy's Law, Case Study #4--The King and I: Anytime I clean out the litter box, Elvis will have to go--and he's not shy about it. But, you can't just leave it at that--can you Mr. Murphy? No, you must take it to a whole new level. You see, the minute the litter box has been dumped, cloroxed, lysoled, dried - and is ready to have new litter dumped in it - you must encourage Elvis to jump in and do his deed before the fresh litter has been put in. You are a wily one.

Murphy's Law, Case Study #5--Shines like the top of the Chrysler Building: When I mop the floor, it is guaranteed that a bottle of something especially sticky and messy will spill on the floor THAT VERY DAY. In the past year, this has included a broken bottle of worchestshire sauce, a bottle of apple juice, a can of sprite, a bowl of jello, a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce (a mess of epic proportions--because it involved a 9 year old boy covered head to toe in red, my pantry, under my fridge, etc--I'm still finding spots of sauce in odd places), -- the list is truly endless.

But, Mr. Murphy - I have beat you at your own game! Finally, I know the answer to your shenanigan ways. It is a little thing I call reverse psychology.

Let's rewind a bit to the first of this week. At the top of my "things to do" list was mopping. I had a slot scheduled for it on Monday. It was going to happen no matter what. My dear sister, Jilly, even called and wanted me to go to the mall with her. But, the mopping prevailed and I courageously told her no.

At the last minute - just as I was ready to mop, life got in the way - and I had to postpone the job. But you see, Mr. Murphy, the trap had been set. I had gone through so many motions of pre-mopping that you thought the deed had been done. So you set upon me as usual -- using Savvy and a big can of rootbeer as your scapegoat - only you were foiled!

The joke is on you my dear friend, Mr. Murphy, for I wasn't able to complete the mopping task until today at 5 pm. The day is almost over, and so far nothing extremely terrible has spilled, broke or secreted bodily fluids onto my freshly mopped floor (of course, I do realize that by saying this - all of the above could be happening as I type--after all it is YOUR law).

Obediently Yours,

Nic

A PSA from Nic

Loyal Readers: Today I was perusing the cute scrapbook pages on my darling cousin Jen's blog. I decided to leave her a comment - and after posting it - noticed that someone by the name of "Tygogal" had left her one also. All it said was "Click HERE to view comment". Being of a curious nature, I clicked. Guess what I found out?

Tygogal=A secret combination=The Spawn of Satan.

Weird stuff started downloading into my registry. This actually happened to my DH in the summer - he clicked on something from (supposedly) Microsoft -- and the next thing he knew he had downloaded a Trojan Horse virus(it's not really a virus - but it causes tons of problems on your computer and really slows things down).

Anyway, after this happened to DH, he told me if something like that ever happened again, to shut the computer off and unhook the wireless internet link from the wall. Luckily, when I noticed all this crazy stuff- I remembered to flip the switch and shut it down (oops - forgot to unhook the internet though).

Thanks goodness I knew what to do! I thought I was in the clear - but when I rebooted the computer and ran my "Spyware" detector--a ton of naughty spies had downloaded to my registry. We deleted them off - ran another CA Virus detector - and found another doozie.

How did Typogal find Jen? Probably through searches on either google or blogspot. So she and I (proper english?) both went into our blogs under "Customize" then clicked on "Settings". Then scrolled down a bit to "Add blog to our listings" - changed the answer to NO. Scrolled down a little more to "Let search engines find your blog?" And changed that answer to NO.

By the way, this isn't privatizing your blog. Your blog will still be available on the internet - it just won't be listed with the masses - and will hopefully keep SPIES LIKE THEM away.