People of Walmart

 

 

Today we went on a family outing....to WALMART. Now, those of you who know me probably have made fun of me at some point because of my couponing and thrift store perusing, but I must admit.....I am a bit of a grocery store snob. I love Publix and most always buy my groceries there. I get the deals and I know the layout of the store except for those wonderful times marketing consultants come in and remap the store so that you cant find the thing you were going to buy in its normal spot and end up buying 27 more items you didn't come in for while searching for its new location. Anyhoo....my dear hubby hates it when I buy groceries because I don't do a lot of "convenience" foods and as I said before, I tend to be thrifty with my shopping. So today we went as a family to Walmart, even bringing one of Rylie's friends along who came over after church. Ahhh, Walmart. The trip began with all three kids jumping into the shopping cart, thus mandating me to acquire a second cart for our groceries. As I began to shop the fresh produce, my husband and the kids disappeared faster then you can say "watch for falling prices". I soon caught up with them in the frozen food section where the kids had been ejected to make room for corn dogs and Little Debbies. As I rolled up beside the shorties, Rylie's friend Emma said, "Um, that is the healthy cart and this is the junk food cart." I 'll let you guess whose was whose. So we went our separate ways again. A bit later I was finished with the "health food" items and went to catch up with them in toiletries. As I got closer I heard the distinctive wail of my 3 year old son. I got  closer and saw my husband frantically wheeling them out of the sporting good section with a sheepish grin, mumbling under his breath "we gotta get outta here...". The crying had subsided, and Rylie was saying "Mom, Cohen smells like dead fish..." as Stewart wheeled them towards the register. All I could smell was Tahitian Vanilla and asked them why they smelled like an air freshener. After $$$ at the register (that is what happens when my junk food bandits are along for grocery shopping) I finally asked Stewart what really went down in there....He told me that when he was in the refrigerated section he looked over and a man was looking just past him and said "uh-oh", then he turned around to see Rylie (our 6 yr old) standing by a gallon of sweet tea that she dropped in the floor....slowly glug, glug, glugging out (his words). He quickly righted the jug and they jetted, only to make it over to the fish tanks where Cohen popped the front of one of the tanks off exposing the pumps and thus getting a lovely aromatic layer of aquarium silt on him (that explains Rylie's dead fish comment), leading to the screeching I heard. Oh, and I can't forget the unexplained Tahitian Vanilla smell....somewhere in the midst of this Cohen grabbed a vanilla air freshener and sprayed in right in his eye. Good times. Good times:)



Potty Training

 

Potty Training. It has been a long, daunting process but we have reached a milestone before his 3rd birthday...NO MORE DIAPERS!!! Whoo-hoo! He has been trained for about a month now, but lets reflect on this well worn road to sucess:

 

A few months ago it seemed that our little man finally grasped the concept. He was asking to go to the potty and had been accident free for a few days. We decided to brave it and meet some friends at the theater to see a movie. We made our trips to the potty before the movie began, and then two more times during the show. Cohen did not seem to be into "The Croods" as much as the other kids and kept running back and forth, willy nilly, much to the chagrin of the people in front of us whose seats were being bumped. Then he told me he had to go again. Really? This seemed like another ploy to go out of the movie. So we stayed. BIG MISTAKE. The next thing I knew he came over to me SOAKED. Literally. As if an entire big gulp had been dumped in his lap. Not only that, but there was a small pond around his feet. Luckily people were really into the movie at that point and I had an extra change of clothes in his bag. And LOTS of napkins.

 

 

Cut to a few weeks ago....It was a warm spring day, and the kids and I were at home while the bug man routinely treated our house and yard. He had just finished up and he and I were talking about the joys of of little boys. (His son is a year younger than Cohen). I was filling him in about how Cohen liked to peepee outside, and we were still working on #2. We had been offering him matchbox cars as prizes when he went in the toilet, but for some reason he had aversion to it at the time. So we finished chatting and David a.k.a. bugman walked to his truck. About that time, David said, "Ummmm....he is in the front yard with no pants." I rounded the house to see Cohen sans his bottom half of clothing standing in the front yard for all the world to see. As bugman got into his truck laughing, I looked around, mortified to see if any neighbors were out in the yard. That's when things got worse. Almost instantaniously, 3 things happened. 1) I realized he had gone #2 in the flowerbed in the front yard. 2)Our dog rounded the house and began to "clean it up" for me. 3) The schoolbus, half full of onlooking children passed by our house. As I tried to frantically fling myself in front of my half-naked two year old and hope against all hopes that no one saw the poo....my sweet next door neighbor started walking towards my house. At that point, I threw in the towel at any hopes of dignity as I herded Cohen into the gargage and smiled and said hello, as if nothing were out of the ordinary:)

 

 

Never a dull moment. Kids are a blessing and I wouldn't change a thing:) Thank you Lord!