It's true, I really am a Mom

Today I was heading to the store and had to run another errand which took me in a different way than I usually go.  I drove by this natural foods store that had been recommended so I thought I would stop in.

I walked in and looked right, then left for the grocery carts.  I spotted these frames that you put the grocery baskets in and that's it.  A couple years ago I would be annoyed that the baskets were small, but now I'm wondering where am I supposed to put my child?  So Munchkie had to walk along with me holding my hand.

The next thing I noticed was that the aisles were very narrow.  For most people they would be frustrated that the aisles are narrow because that means difficulty maneuvering the cart.  However I learned that when the aisles are narrow, this means an 18-month-old can very easily grab things off of the shelves.  So I walked around the store measuring it up, scoping out their inventory and prices while constantly saying "No touching" "No put that back" "Mommy said no touching" "No no no" "Stay here with Mommy."  Yikes!  I have become the mothers I always felt sorry for and prayed "please God don't let me turn into them!"

Another observation I made was how colorful food packaging is.  It is very attractive to a young child, even when the contents are wheat berries.  My very observant toddler kept saying "Oh!", pointing and telling me what she recognized (dogs, apples, flowers, yummies).  These food industry people really know how to market!  When you are determining which fight is worth fighting for, you end up with things like $1.29 gluten free honey oatmeal animal cookies because there are "yi-yons raaaaar" (lions rooooar) on them in bright colors so that you don't have to buy the $4.99/lb tomatoes.

By the time we got to the cash register, I was exhausted from using one hand to control Munchkie, the other to hold the very few items I was purchasing while trying to protect the shelved items and prevent near catastrophe from occurring in the grocery store.  So I just couldn't handle saying "No" one more time while trying to pay, put my items in a bag and get out of the store.  I sure hope those check out line cookies were the battle worth loosing. 

Who am I and what have I become?  I guess it's true, I really am a Mom.

I'm never going back

This is the stack of pants, a few capris and a couple skirts that no longer fit.

I went through all of them and they are all too big.  This leaves me with one pair of jeans requiring a belt and one pair of jeans that I shrunk so I could wear without a belt today.  I like having this problem.  I'm taking all of them somewhere to be worn by someone else.  I think while I'm there I should look to see if Goodwill has a few pairs of jeans I can use as transition pants until I reach my goal.

I'm never going back.  Do you hear me?  I'm NEVER going back.  Maybe if I say it in public it will force me to keep what I say.

Bonus!

So I was checking something online and saw something funny with my paycheck recently.  Then I realized that I had an extra check in my bank account.  What?!?!  I looked it up and it was the completion to my sign on bonus, that I had completely forgotten about (a lot has happened in the last 2 years, remembering something like this just isn't possible).

What an amazing thing to happen!

So, the question is, what does a mom do with basically an extra paycheck?  Well this mom immediately had plans for it.  Since Munchkie's Daddy went back to work this week I had planned on getting some frozen dinners together for easy access on those nights when we both are working.  Immediately I thought "Yes!  now we can afford meat!"

First we went on a "date" to the nicer Whole Foods.  I have never spent that much at a grocery store before.  At least not that I can remember.  I bought 40 chicken breasts, 12 pork chops, a 4 pound pork tenderloin, scallops, and a pound of ground buffalo.  I also got all kinds of produce, cheeses, beans, bulk items like lentils and some baking items.  We filled the entire shopping cart including the shelf under the basket and Munchkie's Daddy ended up carrying some stuff up to the register for us.  I was so excited as I placed each item on the conveyor belt and when the total came up, it wasn't even close to the number in my head that I would not go past.  That is what happens when you look for the deals!     

The next thing a mom like me gets is something she's had her eyes on for a while.  I have been wanting to get a Brita filtration system that attaches to the kitchen sink faucet.  Besides the fact that even after going through the Brita pitcher our water still tasted like chemicals I HATED using tap water for cooking.  So I went to my favorite store, Target, and got the filtration system.  Let me just tell you, I am already so glad we got it.  I immediately installed it myself, filled the Brita pitcher and then put water in a water bottle.  Probably the most water tasting water I've had in a while. 

Of course the last item I wanted to get was something purely for me.  I have had my eye on this necklace for months.  I keep returning to the website and looking it up.  I hinted to Munchkie's Daddy that he could get it for me if he wanted.  So I decided that I totally deserved it!  I worked hard for that sign on bonus and I should be able to get something from it besides just meat and water.  I went online and bought the necklace, which is definitely by far the most expensive nonessential and frivolous item I have bought for myself in years.  I cannot even wait for it to come.  I think I will be checking online daily to see when it is finished and shipped.

I love this necklace!

I, of course had it personalized with my two loves' names.  Can't wait to show it off!

Then of course after this last debit from our account, the provider mom kicked in and made sure the rest of the money will be added to our savings account to help build up that nest egg.  I have to be responsible sometime!

I am going to go to bed a happy Munchkie's Mama!  There is food in my fridge and freezer, filtered water coming out of my tap and a beautifully personalized necklace getting mailed to me soon!   Life is so good!

Triple Skinny Vanilla Latte Please

You think you are tired when you're a teenager and can sleep in until 4pm.  You think you are tired when you pull all nighters, close to all nighters or wake up at ridiculous hours for nursing clinical in college.  You think you are tired when you are pregnant, wake up every two seconds to pee and can never get comfortable enough to sleep. But nothing, and I mean nothing compares to the exhaustion of motherhood and working outside the home.

I don't know how I'm going to make it to bedtime tonight (and I mean Munchkie's bedtime, not a normal adult's bedtime).  It may not be possible.

Today was Munchkie's Daddy's first day on the new job. I worked the last two nights.  Our new babysitter just flew in from Brazil yesterday afternoon.  So what does all this mean?  It means that I don't sleep.  Two nights in a row at work are exhausting enough, but add to that a week of not sleeping well and then trying to stay up today with Munchkie and let's just say I'm barely functioning.

I think that God invented Starbucks for working-outside-the-home moms.  Seriously.  I have tried multiple times to give up this addiction to caffeine that mostly consists of skinny vanilla lattes and it never lasts very long.  All it takes is one night of work and one day of staying up and bring on the caffeine.

With my SVL I can sit on the couch, pretend to take a moment for myself and sip a little piece of heaven. While the fourth member of our family, Elmo, entertains Munchkie. 

   

*Sigh*

Ok, now let's tackle this mess, sort through toys, create a grocery list for several weeks of frozen meals, figure out dinner, feed the fam, grocery shop, make weekend plans, and prep the kitchen for a day of freezer meal preparation.

I can do all things through Christ who invented Skinny Vanilla Lattes that give me strength.

A "little" dessert?

Today I was riding in my car when a commercial started playing.  It was a Walmart commercial, which I don't know if I've heard on the radio before.  The commercial started off by talking about how Walmart can help a busy mom by having already prepared meals in their freezer section  (more to come about that at a later date).  The commercial then said- and you can grab dessert while you are in the freezer section because "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  Seriously???

While I feel there are many things wrong with processed foods, I'm not going to go off on that today.  My problem, today, is with the statement: "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  How many people buy a container of ice cream and eat the specified 1/4-1/2 cup serving size?  The only people I know who strictly abide by the serving size are people on weight watchers or other dieters.  So how does this  "not hurt anyone"?  Well let's see, when I was a nurse taking care of adults my back hurt constantly from the increasing size of my patients.  Obesity is a HUGE problem in this country, as has been reported in various media outlets.  Heart disease, diabetes, joint and back problems are just a few of the diseases connected to obesity frequently seen in hospitals around the country (I'm speaking strictly from experience, not from research I've done).  These problems seem to contradict the idea that "a little dessert never hurt anyone."

Now I am in NO way saying that I'm healthy, because I am JUST as guilty as anyone else when it comes to sweets and portion control.    However, when we hear a commercial telling us how they can make our lives easier, it catches our attention.   And then we hear something like "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  Come on, can we have something in our lives to help us out for real?  Something to encourage us to strive to be healthy?  Just last night, when I was watching some television  (because I'm lazy sometimes) there was commercial after commercial advertising for food during the supper hours.  These commercials were not for raw fruits and veggies, coupled with healthy fats--they were fried chicken and greasy hamburgers, topped with huge slabs of bacon.   Now, not only do I want that huge juicy hamburger after watching these ads, but if I'm going to be "bad" I might as well have dessert too, because that's what I really crave.

I don't want my daughter to have dessert be the norm.  I don't want her to think that all foods come out of a carton or bag of some kind.  I want her to realize how amazing a juicy nectarine is, or the way a pear melts in your mouth--not a frozen ice cream sandwich or frozen cake.  I want her to actually experience the taste of real strawberries, a homemade Popsicle made of yogurt and fresh strawberries.  These really won't hurt anybody, and take seconds to mix up, plop in a dixie cup, and throw in the freezer.

So, I may not have all the time in the world, and I may have cravings for all kinds of bad food, but it doesn't help when there are commercials telling me that it won't hurt to eat dessert.  How about a commercial that says "and you can stop by our frozen section and pick up a bag of unsweetened frozen blueberries for a cold, sweet and refreshing dessert."  Now that is really convenient and helpful for a working mom!


Come on Walmart, how about whole, raw, pesticide and chemical free food to help your family have more energy, better health and an overall longer life, because that really "never hurt anyone."

*Soon to come, how a working mom can avoid those premade processed frozen dinners that are oh-so-convientent.*

Oh the babyweight diets....

The Preacher and the Teacher: Things I would Like to Eat Right Now: "I'm on a diet because I believed what people told me when they said that I could eat whatever I wanted when I was pregnant because I was eat..."

I go to bed with dirty dishes

Yep. That's right.  I go to bed with dirty dishes.  You can call me what you want, but I hate doing dishes, Munchkie's Daddy hates doing dishes and so they don't always get done.  Especially when the dishwasher is full of clean dishes because we equally dislike putting away the dishes.

(I'm having a slight panic attack about showing this)

When you get married sometimes you assume that your relationship with your husband or wife is going to be a mirror image of your parents, or you may go the opposite direction and say "I will never EVER be like my parents."  Either way, it doesn't always turn out the way you think.  Growing up my mom stayed home with us.  She cooked almost every meal and in the words of my brother as a child "we're having salad and gross stuff for dinner."  That means she always served very healthy, well-balanced and food pyramid guided meals.  After dinner we would clear our plates and then my dad would stand at the sink and do the dishes.  If the trash needed to be taken out, he would do it.  I never saw my mom asking him to do either.

So the day came that I got married.

Naturally I assumed that Munchkie's Daddy would gladly without hesitation do every dish and take out the trash whenever it got remotely full.  I guess I never thought about how the division of chores were created in my house growing up.  I also was so naive that I didn't realize my mother's frustration when she asked my dad to vacuum and it wasn't completed to her standards.  In the early days of my marriage I remember being so frustrated that I started to vent to my mother on the phone (something which I try not to do- talk about my husband and I's relationship to my parents) and I will never forget what she said to me.

Amanda, why do you think that your dad does the things he does?  It took me years to train him.

 How could I, just months into my marriage, assume that my relationship with Munchkie's Daddy could be the mature relationship of my parents?  While I know my mom was joking about the training part, it's true.  It takes years to figure out the division of household chores.  And guess what, they aren't necessarily divided because we enjoy doing something, like the dishes.  I guess that you just suck it up and do things that you don't like because they have to get done.

So for now I am going to go to bed with dirty dishes.  Since I don't like doing them and he doesn't like doing them, they will sit out for a few more hours.  Maybe someday there will be HIS chores and HERS chores, but I think those are a few more years in the making.  And in those years I will be grateful for all of the things he does do, like make dinner most nights, do laundry and pick up around the house.

Hopefully by then Munchkie will be old enough to have her own chores and we can pay her with a measly allowance to do the chores we don't like "to teach her responsibility."