Cartless Shopping

05 Apr 2012 5 Comments

by Natalie in Don't ever take your kids..., Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , ,

Now that my two oldest are getting too big to fit together in a shopping cart, I am going to invest in two of those leash-your-child-to-you contraptions. It’s the only way I figure I can keep them from rampaging through a store like a couple of rabies-infested wild dogs.

It’s spring break this week, which means I’ve had my 5-year-old home all week. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was that we got to play with him this week. Yet how unthrilled I was to run a few short errands with him Monday afternoon.

Running a quick errand with one child is difficult. Running one with two children is disastrous. At least for me.

Now my definition of a short errand is one where I can be in and out of a store within 15 minutes – 10 if my children cooperate. I’m not talking about an 1.5 hour trip to the grocery store. It’s not like I am torturing my little ones.

But they end up torturing me.

Our first trip Monday was to a rather large party-supply store. I needed to grab a few bags to wrap easter gifts. No big deal, right? Wrong.

Word of the wise, don’t ever take your children into a party-supply store. Their cute chubby fingers can’t resist the bins filled with favors. They’ll end up knocking half of the stuff into the aisles as you frantically try to put it back in the bin it belongs.

Not. Worth. It.

The worst part? When we got to the checkstand my 3-year-old spotted a piece of candy on the floor. He popped it into his mouth before I could yell “NO!” Then he smiled and laughed at how good it tasted. How can I tell him it’s not good for him when it tastes delicious?

After the party store we ran to a thrift department store to make a simple return. This store had carts. They were small, plastic ones but I didn’t care. I plopped both of my boys in the same cart and told them to sit down and be quiet. Big mistake.

They wrestled and climbed on top of each other and then decided to lick each other’s faces all over while I waited in line to make my return. Disgusting. No matter what I did, they wouldn’t stop.

And the check-out lady? She seemed oblivious. There’s something about my children going wild that must calm employees at the register. Because they never seem to move very quickly to ring me up even though I think I am going to lose it.

I think she said something to me like, “Your kids are having fun.” To which I replied, “Yep, but they are driving me nuts.” What I really wanted to say was, “Can you move any slower? Because I feel like smacking you right now.”

We’d been to two stores, shopping for less than 30 minutes, and I had had enough.

It wasn’t as if Monday’s behavior was a fluke. This comes on the cusp of me losing control of them at a religious store two weeks ago when we went to buy a small present for their cousin.

I had no option at this store – no carts. They zig-zagged through aisles behind me as a tried to quietly, yet sternly, whisper “get over here” in a respectful way. All heck broke loose when we entered the store’s small clothing section. While I was checking a size on something they decided to run from mannequin to mannequin rubbing their grungy cheeks on each white dress that was hung. I wanted to kill them.

Then I drug them to the cash register. While I was waiting to buy one, small thing, they snuck behind me and put plastic rings on each of their fingers. They were going to “keep” them. After I told them that was stealing, they reluctantly put them back and stood right next to me.

That’s when they knocked over an entire DVD display sending new releases flying across the floor. I helped a worker pick them up and put the display back up only to turn around and see them knock it down again. I was so mad.

I took them on one simple errand that day and I ended up exhausted.

But I’m too stubborn to run all of my errands alone. I have more time during the day when they are with me and even though it stresses me out, I feel like I need to keep taking them so they will learn to behave. Wishful thinking? Probably.

Luckily for a couple more months I’ll just have one little boy to take with me when my oldest goes back to school. Who knows what I’ll do this summer when I add a third one to the mix. I’ll definitely have to order my leash things by then.

Up All Night

08 Mar 2012 5 Comments

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , ,

It happens at least twice a week. I am slumbering soundly when I am jolted awake by an outcry from my offspring.

It’s 1, 2, or 3 a.m. and one of them needs something. Usually it’s something simple, something they could easily fix on their own, but they seem to forget how to do anything in the dark, cold night.

My husband and I end up taking them to the potty or tucking them back in. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather they holler out than wet the bed, but I am left wondering where I went wrong.

I have failed to teach my children how to climb out of bed, walk five feet to the bathroom and go potty on their own. I have also failed to show them how to tug on their sheet corner to pull covers back over their little cold bodies.

They just can’t seem to do it without help.

Every once in a while they actually NEED help from a parent. But they cry wolf so many times I don’t know when to believe them.

The worst is when they wake up sick. I am ashamed to say I am not a good parent when it comes to helping them feel better in the wee hours of the morning.

I should be patient, loving and consoling. Instead I transform into a grizzly she bear who is woken from hibernation and just might devour her cubs.

I can’t help myself and normally after I go back to bed and get a couple of winks of sleep in, I wake up feeling like a complete jerk.

A few weeks a go my oldest went to bed with an earache. He ended up sleeping a record of 2 hours before hollering out for help. At 10:30 p.m., when I was just getting ready to tuck myself in, he shouted out in pain.

We tried relieving the pressure and pain by using an old home remedy of steamed onions and a warm rag. That helped for about five seconds. At 11:30 my husband ran to the nearest Wal-Mart and got numbing eardrops.

By midnight he was a whole new kid. And we were ready to go back to bed. Well at least my husband and I were. My oldest was wide awake. We set him up downstairs watching Netflix on the LoveSac. Thirty minutes later he was up by our bed wide eyed and whining.

We forced him back onto his bed but he wasn’t going to go to sleep. He wasn’t tired and he wasn’t happy. I lied in bed listening to him scream at us for 30 minutes. He wanted me to sleep by him.

We hollered back and forth to each other for what felt like forever. I was so tired I was delusional and immature. I had some pretty stupid comebacks including something like, “Don’t you realize that I have to get up in less than 5 hours?”

Yeah, I am sure that my 5-year-old with an earache can calculate his mother’s sleep total.

My husband hit the breaking point at 1 a.m. and went to lie by him.

We got about 4.5 hours of sleep that night – way too little for a tired, pregnant mother.

But it’s sort of my fault. I should have gone to bed an hour earlier. And, had I laid by him when he was wide awake at midnight, I could have got at least six hours.

I just can’t think clearly in the moonlight. All the sick little boy wanted was his mommy to lay by him while he fell asleep. I should have done that.

I’ve got to learn to control myself when jolted from bed in the night. My boys are 5 and 3. It’s okay for them to holler for help in the night.

But I think I might try having cover-pulling-up contests and potty-break practices to get them trained on what to do when they wake up with minor incidents.

Then maybe we can all go a couple of weeks between nighttime episodes. Until we have a newborn that is.

I’m dying to know, how do you keep your cool when woken up by your babies at night?

No Cookie Dough Love

16 Feb 2012 6 Comments

by Natalie in Cooking/Attempting to Cook, Failed Housewife, Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , , ,

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I love making sugar cookies and I love my boys. But I do not love making sugar cookies with my boys.

That is one more activity I am going to add to my I-wish-I-had-the-patience-to-do-that-with-my-kids list.

I have tried a few times to make yummy treats with my little ones’ “help.” But it never happens the way I think it should. The way I daydream it will. I guess it’s too much to ask a 3 and 5 year old to whip out their Martha Stewart skills.

My sons have no sense of order. No sense of tidiness. And when it comes to making cookies I swear they think our kitchen has transformed into an evil scientist’s lab. Either that or a Playdoh making factory – especially when we get to the cooking cutting part.

Last Sunday I decided to make heart-shaped Valentine’s cookies with the boys. It was going to be a great reverent Sunday afternoon bonding experience.

Yeah right.

We hadn’t been cooking five minutes before the first splash of flour rained down on my recently mopped kitchen floor and the stress sunk in. Our reverent activity turned into a nagfest as I tried to control them as they dumped ingredients into the Kitchen-Aid bowl.

Things only got worse when we started rolling out dough. I turned my back for a split second and they shoved their hands into the can of flour. I turned back around to a puffy white cloud and four pint-sized flour mountains on top of their “cookies.”

That’s when I lost it. I yelled at them for making a huge mess. All of a sudden our “fun” family activity had taken a turn for the worse.

My husband offered to help the boys finish. I am sure he could tell I was nearing a breaking point. But I was too stubborn to stop our fun-filled activity.

I had a giant ball of dough to roll out, cut and then bake and I realized my children weren’t going to be any “help.” So I gave up on getting their help. I gave up on keeping order.

I gave each of them a ball of dough and let them have at it. They rolled and cut and mixed who knows what into their dough samples for a long time. They each made their own “delicious” cookie filled with all kinds of goodies and topped with cherry fruit snacks.

Giving up on the perfect cookie-making experience did wonders for my nerves but it was a devastating for my poor, innocent kitchen. When we were finished I swept up an inch of flour from off of the floor.

I have fond memories of rolling out dough and helping my mom make treats. Those memories don’t include my mom ever yelling at me for the dough sticking to the table or for flour getting on the floor. How did she do it? How did she keep her cool? We always had a great time. I am worried my children won’t have any memories like that. I wish I were more patient.

I think a lot of times I set my expectations far too high. I should have realized that making cookies with two little boys was going to be disastrous.

Maybe someday I’ll be ready to try making sugar cookies with them again. But probably not until I can get on some anti-anxiety meds.

Gentlemen

22 Dec 2011 Leave a comment

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do?

It wouldn’t be Christmas unless I sewed something for my boys. Right?

Not that I don’t already have a million things going on in my crazy life, but it wouldn’t feel like I gave it a solid holiday try if I didn’t make them something each December.

So on Monday I hauled my 3-year-old to the fabric store. To my surprise they had virtually no holiday-themed fabric — unless you were looking for Valentine’s pink or St. Patrick’s Day green.  Apparently we missed the holiday sale.

Eventually we found a few reams of Christmas-looking stuff and settled on a maroon velvet print. I also grabbed some satin gold and some gold buttons. I spent the morning cutting out and sewing my sons Christmas vests for church on Sunday.

When my 5-year-old got home from school he was so excited. He loved his vest and said that now he could be, “a real gentleman.”

Little did I know he wanted to transform himself into the epitome of gentleman. The next thing I knew I was in the kitchen working on dinner and getting ready to sew him a pair of black knickers to go with the outfit, when I heard the water going in the bathroom.

At our house, that is never a good sign.

I turned down the stove and poked my head in the bathroom only to find my hair styling gel bottle half empty and my boys’ hair shellacked to their heads. They had splashed water and gel everywhere in an effort to top off their “gentleman” persona.

At first I was really mad. I grabbed a brush and started combing my oldest son’s hair. Bubbles foamed as I ran it across the top of his scalp.

There was no way I was going to be able to comb through this one.

I have never used a blow dryer on either of my sons’ heads. They have always been nervous about its sound and the warm air. But I had no other choice. I didn’t have time to toss them in the tub so I whipped out the blow dryer and blew away the foam.

That seemed to calm me down and then it hit me. They hadn’t ruined their new vests and they hadn’t ruined anything in the bathroom. That’s when I started to feel guilty.

I felt like an evil stepmother who tells her child that they look hideous after they just finished “perfecting” themselves for a special event. I don’t ever want to be the kind of parent who puts them down when they are trying their best.

So I tried to explain to them that if they really wanted their hair to look extra special, I would be happy to teach them how to comb and style it — but we could use a heck of a lot less gel.

Sometimes I get too worked up over the little things. I need to realize that if I haven’t sewn my sons anything for Christmas and the holiday is less than a week away, it’s OK. Granted they loved the vests and I love making things, but sometimes it’s too much.

I also need to realize that losing a little gel to a child who wants to look like a “gentleman” isn’t a bad thing. There are worse things my sons could want to look like.

Next year I might not sew anything for Christmas. And I might buy them some styling gel to wrap for under the tree.

Merry Christmas!

Losing Neverland

17 Nov 2011 8 Comments

by Natalie in Parenting Battles

It’s been two and a half weeks since Halloween yet my 3-year-old is still living in Neverland. I can’t for the life of me get the kid to shed his Captain Hook costume.

Don’t get me wrong. I love his costume and I think he looks really cute in it, but it’s getting a little old.

I made the costume in the middle of October and he immediately attached to it – wearing it all day, everyday. It was really fun to go shopping with him right before Halloween. People thought he was so cute and would dote over him. We got a lot of stares and smiles.

Nearly one month later, we are still getting a lot of stares and not so many smiles. I bet people think I am totally crazy letting my child walk around as a Disney character.

I have a couple of problems with him always wanting to wear his costume.

First of all, he constantly wants to be someone else. When he has his costume on, he marches around the house with a scowl as he sings the theme song to “Hook.” He won’t play anything with me or anyone else. He’s too far into character. Besides, it’s too hard to play with Play-doh, Legos, Tinker Toys, animals, etc. when you have a hook in one hand and a sword in the other.

Second, when he wants to be Hook, he wants to be Hook. I can’t convince him to put just part of his costume on, he has to put on the hat, wig, shirt, collar, jacket, pants, shoes, hook and sword. Oh, and I have to draw a curly eye-liner mustache above his upper lip.

I’m glad we have gotten our money’s worth out of the costume, but I want to put part, if not all, of it away.

Lastly, the costume has taken over his life. I don’t know where to draw the line between his make believe and reality. Who am I to crush his imagination and tell him he can’t play pretend anymore? When do I tell him he has to be my son and not Hook? I’m getting worried that he constantly wants to be someone else.

On Tuesday I told him he couldn’t be Hook because I wanted him to play with me and he doesn’t play with me when he’s Hook. His response? He told me he’d give me a $100 if I let him wear his costume.

Nice.

What should I do to ease our transition away from Halloween? What do you do for your children? I love my children and I want them to be innocent, creative and imaginative, but I don’t want my son to still be wearing his costume on Christmas.

My Hate of Grocery Shopping

03 Nov 2011 2 Comments

by Natalie in Don't ever take your kids..., Failed Housewife, Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do?

If I didn’t have to eat to live, I would never go grocery shopping.

The grocery store and I do not mix. Add children to the equation and the combination is lethal. Normally I come home and want to cry, take a nap or start ordering all of my food from Schwans.

No matter how much I plan and how many coupons I clip, our trip always takes twice as long as I want it to and I spend twice as much as I planned.

I don’t know what it is about buying food for our family, but it brings out the worst in my boys and me.

Heaven help me if I have to go to a store with car carts. It never fails that the seatbelts have been broken off so my kids can climb out of the car’s doors freely. Usually they try to make a break for it while I’m rolling them quickly and I nearly run over one of their arms.

Then there’s shopping with the extended double-seated carts.  I have a serious love-hate relationship with those things.

One week I drove around the entire parking lot looking for an extended double-seated grocery cart.  I normally start our grocery trips hunting up and down the aisles looking for them. Because when we don’t have them, half of my food ends up smashed or broken as the boys fight while riding in the back of the cart. And I refuse to let them walk beside me.

Our favorite grocery store parks the giant haulers outside, which I think is totally stupid. Year round it causes a problem.

In the winter the door greeters have to help me push inches of snow off of the cart’s seats, then they get upset that the snow dripped inside the store. In the summer the seats are roasting hot and my boys don’t want to go anywhere near them.

Can’t they just park them inside?

This summer after hunting down a cart then draping it with my reusable shopping bags to keep it from burning my little boys’ bums, I pushed it on inside. Only to be totally floored when the door greeter cautioned me to not let my kids fall off of it.  Seriously?

I’m sorry that I improvised making a buffer between my boys’ bottoms and the blistering-hot plastic. Oh, and I didn’t want to strap scalding-hot seat belts across their poor little tummies in order to secure them in tightly. Rest assured door greeter man, their safety is my prime concern.

Maybe if you didn’t park the carts outside they wouldn’t be so hot and I wouldn’t worry about their under thighs blistering on contact.

All of this before we even buy a thing.

Sometimes while shopping my boys get what I call “grabby hands.” They stick their hands straight out from the cart grabbing and hitting everything they come in contact with on the shelves. That’s especially fun while rolling down the canned-food aisle.

Other times it’s a constant, “he hit me”/ “he pinched me” whine-a-thon. Yet another reason why I both love and hate the giant double-seated carts. I guess the urge to pinch, hit or bite your brother amplifies tremendously when you are in close proximity. Riding side-by-side, they just can’t help it.

I started buying a $2 cup of popcorn chicken for them to share while we shopped so they could keep their minds and fingers off of each other. That worked out well for a while. Until it got to the point where they started fighting over that too.

Every once and a while, my children surprise me by actually behaving when we stroll through the store. Then all heck breaks loose as we hit the checkout line. They must sense that freedom is near and all of their pent-up energy bursts through.

I have a particularly fond memory of my oldest kicking, hitting and biting me while we were checking out one day. I wouldn’t let him have a toy at the end of our trip and so he was taking his wrath out on me. I’ll never forget the older lady in line behind me. She helped me strap his tantrum-throwing body back in the cart so he couldn’t get to me to hurt me.

All she could say was, “I promise you it gets better.”

What am I supposed to do when they throw fits like that at the finish line? I’m not about to abandon a chuck-full cart by the side of the cash register and go home empty-handed.

I am sure it would be less stressful to shop alone. But I don’t always have the luxury or energy to go in the evenings or on the weekend.

Ironically, sometimes I think that it will be faster if I go shopping alone. Not true. I have been able to go alone a few times and it has taken me much longer. I guess something about pushing two little boys who are beating the crap out of each other makes you bust a move through the store and grab only the necessities. When I go by myself I pause to window shop. I get distracted. And I take twice as long.

But I can’t blame them for all of my grocery store blunders. I have problems when I am by myself too.

One night before their birthdays I went shopping by myself to get groceries and one of their presents – spin-brush toothbrushes.  Early on in my trip I dropped one of the stupid brushes on the ground and it started spinning. It spun and vibrated in my cart for more than an hour while I did my shopping. I’m sure the other customers walking around the store at 10 p.m. wondered what on earth the humming sound was coming from underneath my purse.

It seems as if I can’t win. And yet I can’t very well let me and my family starve because of a little chaotic grocery shopping.

Every once and a while shopping, I run into a mother just like me. She’s rushing through the store pushing a cart that is bursting at the seams and chastising her fighting, unruly children as her coupons and list fall to the floor. I have to fight the urge to give her a hug or a piece of candy. She has done something for me I can never repay. She has made me feel normal.

Luckily I only go shopping every two weeks. That way I have 14 days to forget about the pain. I am hoping that lady at the checkout stand is right. That it really does get better. But for now, I’m not holding my breath.

Wash That Car

20 Oct 2011 4 Comments

by Natalie in Don't ever take your kids..., Parenting Battles Tags: , , , ,

If any of you ever get the urge to take your kids with to help you at the self-service car wash, call me. I’ll talk some sense into you.  

A couple of weeks ago my van was filthy after I took it camping. I thought it would be fun to take the boys with to help me wash it off and vacuum it out. Boy was I wrong.

First of all, we prepped the van for vacuuming. I knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time on the vacuum limit so we took the car seats, blankets and all of the extra stuff out of the van and sat them on the ground. Then my boys each grabbed a section of the thick hose and braced themselves for the roar of the vacuum as they stood near the passenger side sliding door. I put a dollar’s worth of quarters in the vacuum and watched the machine flash 4:00.

Four minutes?! That’s all the time they give me to cover my entire van?  I knew time was going to be short, but I thought it would be a little longer than that.  I was feeling stressed before it all began.

Four minutes is barely enough time for me to skim the interior myself while racing from side to side. Trying to make it under four minutes with tiny arms stretching the cord as far as they physically can in an effort to “help” was going to be nearly impossible.

I was torn. I wanted to let them help, but I knew we weren’t going to make it. I tried to shout out orders to them over the roar of the machine as all three of us held the hose and brushed it across the carpet, but it was no use. We ended up popping two extra quarters into the machine after we ran out of time twice.

At that point I was sweating.

I glanced up at the pricing sign for the automatic garage-style car wash and decided that I didn’t want to pay that much. So we pulled into the nearest empty bay and hopped out. I should have known we were in trouble the minute I saw my oldest grab the hose/wand and raise it to his shoulder as if it were a giant squirt gun.

Because to a 5-year-old that’s exactly what it is. He doesn’t care about my van’s muddy exterior. All he wants to do is pull the trigger.

But at this point I still thought it might be “fun” to have his help.

I should have realized there was no way my scrawny arms had a chance in scraping off all of the hundreds of bugs that peppered the hood.

Not to mention I thoroughly pre-washed my left foot.

It took over 12 minutes to work through three wash cycles. I spent $7.25 to spray me, my boys and my van when it would have cost me only $5.50 to have the automatic machine do it for me.

Why didn’t I fork out that money?

Once again I find myself at a crossroads. Do I do things by myself in order to get them done quickly and right? Or do I continue to allow them to help?

I know I need to teach them work ethic, but next time my van is caked with mud and bugs I’ll wait until my husband can stay home with the boys and I’ll wash it alone.

What chores do your kids help you with? How do you keep calm while they help?

“Mom, Take A Picture!”

25 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, Trying to be a Better Mom, What's a mom to do?

Something he drew on his drawing board but didn't want to erase.

The popcorn tin from last Christmas.

Normally when a child yells, “Mom, take a picture!” It means he or she is about to do something amazing. Not when my 5-year-old yells it. When I hear that phrase I know he’s about to ask me to document the final moments of some piece of trash I’m going to make him throw away.

My oldest is a hoarder/collector who would save his nose-wiping tissue if I let him. He has the unique ability to fall in love with the most random objects and then desperately want to keep them forever.

We’ve had a lot of conflict recently when it comes to his collections. Honestly we are running out of room in his bursting closet and my husband and I need some relief. So we struck a deal with him. Whenever he wants to keep something that we don’t approve of, we’ll take a picture of it and print it off.

The cup of bugs he caught at a family party at a park.

Now I’ll admit he gets some of his saver style from his mother. I like to keep items of sentimental value. But so far

most of the stuff he wants to keep is junk. Like the chocolate milk bottle he drank empty at McDonald’s, or the bone-dry bubbles container

he finished off in the backyard. Two of my favorite “keepsake” pictures we have taken recently are of the metal popcorn tin we got for

A beetle on our side porch.

Christmas last

year that had caramel popcorn melted to its insides and the Styrofoam cup filled with a spider, ant and two beetles that he collected at a family gathering at a park.

Growing up we loved when my mom drove us by a house in town that was loaded with junk. We nicknamed it the junkyard – think the beast’s yard

A dragonfly he caught at his great-grandpa's 80th birthday party.

from The Sandlot times 20. It was disgusting yet mesmerizing. Piles of old broken down machinery layered the lawn. I always wondered about the man who collected all of the junk. I heard they made him clean it up after a bomb scare in

A giant butterfly he caught at grandma's house.

his yard when I was a late teen. I think my oldest may turn into that man.

Now I’m sure you’re envisioning giant mountains of garbage piled throughout his bedroom. Trust me, it isn’t that bad. But that’s because I don’t let him keep everything he wants. What happens when he moves out? I’ll have to hire him a housekeeper to keep him from swimming in trash.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s not that big of a deal. I have to clean my kid’s room all the time. But it’s emotional every

time my hand goes to place something of his in the garbage and I hear “That’s my special ________ (fill in the blank).” It’s hard to tell what’s special and what’s just plain garbage. Sometimes I have to sneak stuff into the outside garbage when he’s not looking only to worry that he’ll ask for it later.

The picture-taking strategy is starting to help. I’ll probably end up with dozens of photos of pieces of trash. But it’s worth it if he’ll finally let me throw some of it away. Maybe he’ll grow out of his hoarding habits someday and I’ll look back at those pictures and laugh.

A baby pine cone he found in the mountains.

School Shopping Stress

18 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by Natalie in Don't ever take your kids..., Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , , ,

It’s no secret that I am not excited to send my 5-year-old to all-day kindergarten this fall.  But I decided to try to show my support and encouragement for his new school year by taking him shopping for some new school clothes.

Big mistake.

The shopping trip backfired, doing nothing to better our relationship.

I spent most of the time hollering, “Knock it off,” as I chased down my 3- and 5-year- olds while glancing at clothes out of the corner of my eye. Luckily I invited my mom to come, so she could help me reel them in.

We went to one store and were in there for less than an hour. It could have been less than a half hour if my boys would have behaved. I keep waiting for the day that they realize that if they cooperate and do what I ask them to do, it will make things go faster, giving us more time to do things that they ask to do.

But they still haven’t figured that out so they fight back making things worse.

First of all we made the mistake of trying to get the boys to sit in a shopping cart. That would keep them close, right? Right. But the department-store shopping cart is about one-fourth the size of a grocery-store shopping cart. And they have problems with the carts at the grocery store.

I think the urge to pinch, punch and pick on your brother is multiplied by 100 when you are in close proximity. They weren’t in that cart for two minutes before one of them was crying.

Then we let them down. That’s when I wish I would have had two of those kid-leash things.

I understand that kids are crazy and that little boys don’t love to shop, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay for my children to run around the store hiding under folded clothes and swinging from hanging rails.  They literally looked like wild monkeys.

They were having the time of their lives at my expense. I think in their mind the department store was a whole new McDonald’s-style playground with unlimited possibilities. Fun for them. Death for me.

One of the highlights was when we asked my oldest to try on some slip-on sneakers. We wanted to see him walk in the shoes, but of course the pair was hooked together with an elastic band.

He put one shoe on his left foot and then took off as fast as he could, hobbling around the corner with the right foot’s shoe and inch away from tripping him with every step. I thought for sure he was going to come crashing down into some end-cap display. At least it slowed him up making him easier to catch.

Then came time to try on a pair of jeans. You would have thought we had asked to re-administer his kindergarten shots. He flopped around on the floor trying to get away while my mom held him down and pulled his legs inside.

It was mass chaos and it stressed me right out. My mother thought it was hilarious. Probably because I did stuff like that to her when I was young.

But was really got to me was the fact that I was trying to help and take care of my son by buying him some nice things for school and he treated me like dirt. He acted completely ungrateful as he totally ignored my pleas for good behavior. Hopefully after the talk we had when we got home he’ll think twice before acting like that again – at least anytime soon.

Now that I think about it maybe our shopping trip didn’t completely backfire. It helped me realize that it might be nice for me to let someone else deal with his wild-side outbursts for a change. Believe me, I’ll miss him while he’s at school, but a little structure and discipline will do him good.

Churchtime Fun

21 Jul 2011 6 Comments

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do?

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It’s 10:58. We’re running toward the chapel doors. My four-year-old leads the way to the left side of the room where we normally sit. I pull my 2-year-old along as he races to keep up. “My pants,” the 2-year-old yells. I turn around to see his slightly too big black dress pants around his knees. I turn forward again and see the four-year-old booking it to the front of the chapel. A nearby sister helps shove my son’s pants up and I race to the front of the room and sink down next to my oldest — on the front row. I look up to the stand and catch my husband’s eye. All he can do is smile.

All in a Sabbath day’s worship.

Sunday mornings are crazy at our house. My husband has meetings so I am left alone to get the kids and myself ready for church. How I am supposed to have a spiritual experience after yelling at my children to get out the door is beyond me.

I don’t know how we do it, but most of the time we get to the church in one piece — we’re not early by any means — but we manage to plop onto a pew relatively close to our meeting’s start time. We bring with us a church-time circus that I am sure is not only disruptive but highly entertaining for all.

Half of the time I sit down and glance at my Sunday best and find I’ve spilled toothpaste, cover-up or breakfast down my dress. One Sunday I splashed butter all the way down my skirt and leg while rushing to get rolls ready before church. I spent the first five minutes of sacrament trying to wipe away and camouflage the long grease stain that ran down my side.

Most Sundays I spend a majority of the meeting drawing pictures at my 4-year-old’s command only to erase them and try again, because to him they don’t look like what he requested.

Then there’s the 2-year-old’s drama. He refuses to go to the bathroom before we leave our house but something about Sacrament brings it out of him. Many times he’ll scream, “I need to go potty,” during a quiet part of the meeting and I rush him to the nursery toilet — sometimes twice.

I’ve given up on singing hymns. At most I get through three measures before my children either need me for something or slam the book in my face. If I’m lucky, the chorister will choose a song I have memorized and I can sing off and on while I do other things.

I pack three hours worth of treats and activities in an oversized beach bag “just in case.” In case one of the boys burns through the games, paper or goldfish I have packed and I’ll have to dig down deeper to find something that will pique his interest and buy me a few more minutes of reverence.

I spent hours making quiet books (see slideshow above) for Christmas hoping they would help. I’ve affectionately nicknamed those books the “not-so-quiet books.” When the boys play with them, they fight over the pages and pieces — even though they each have their own identical books. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even feel bad if they don’t want to get the books out.

By the time the meeting is over we have left a trail of destruction all across our bench. I swear if the kind old man who brings treats for my boys each week gives them Nerds one more time I am going to flip.

Normally I can’t wait until the closing prayer. Then I can set them lose to find their dad while I clean up our whirlwind of devastation.

Why do I put myself through all of this? Why do I sit nervously in a quiet chapel worrying about my child’s next outburst? Why do I get out of bed early each Sunday morning so I can start getting ready for a stress-filled sacrament?

I do it because the Lord has given me everything. My meager three-hour Sunday worship is only a small way I can show my gratitude.

I do it to show my two crazy boys that my religion is vital to my happiness on Earth. And even if I hear less than 5 percent of what the speakers say, I am following my heart by dedicating myself to my worship.

It’s not easy taking my boys to church alone and I am sure I will complain about it at least a few more times before my life is through.  But if I don’t start taking my children now, how will they learn reverence and respect for a Heavenly Father who gives them everything?

Thank heavens for good friends and neighbors who let me sit by them and help me entertain my irreverent monkeys. Because no matter how crazy our church-time circus becomes, I will continue to go each week. Heaven help me find the patience to survive.

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