The Child who owns the World, but ONLY in Public

Have you ever had an experience with one of your children that caused the blood to drain from your face? The kind of experience that encourages you to strongly reconsider taking said kid out in public for fear of social ruin?  Well, for all of you who have been there...or are there...this is the tale of the kid, the granny, and the horrified mother...enjoy!

I love Costco.  Every trip to Costco is delightful for me.  There is something about buying in bulk that puts a smile on my face.  A few weeks back, I took my wild brood of 3 to Costco to restock on diapers, and toilet paper, and (of course) to buy a 5lb bag of M&Ms.  As always, we turned down the book isle to peruse children's books...Peniel takes this particular part of the Costco experience very seriously.  Its the only moment in any given shopping trip where she is honed in and focused.  Peniel is the kid who hangs off the side of the cart and hollers at people in a British accent as we roll on by...but not in the book isle, never in the book isle.  We were rapidly approaching the children's book section so Peniel jumped off the side of the cart and started walking down the isle brushing her hand along the stacks of books.  She stopped short of her destination, for there was a road block in the form of a silver haired woman looking at the book on the first stack of children's books, I assumed Peniel would just go around...I assumed wrong.  Peniel wedged her way in between the woman and the stack of books and put her hands on her hips, and started tapping one of her feet.  The woman looked down and said hello to my darling sweet Peniel...Peniel looked up, and in a voice that sounded a few octaves lower than her usual whimsical sing song voice she said, "GET. OUT. OF. MY. WAY"
It all happened so fast, so very fast.  It was like watching an avalanche.  I was mortified, frozen in horror.  I reached out and grabbed her and told her to apologize...as the bewildered older woman walked off, I wanted to yell out, "she didn't learn that from me!"  As the woman turned the corner and was gone, I gave Peniel the most serious whisper scolding I could muster...which means very little to a child who knows the power they wield in public places...I shopped a little faster that day, took fewer samples, and forgot to buy half the things I needed to buy...all because my child owned the world that shopping trip, and me, the pheasant, could do very little...but the moment we got home, the world was right again, mommy was queen...and rudeness is high treason in Mommy's Kingdom.


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To the Victor Goes the Snacks!

I have two girls, both adorable, and both 100% opposites.  Peniel is a huger, Rafe is a biter.  Peniel likes to be the boss, Rafe refuses to take orders.  Peniel is easily distracted, Rafe is not.  Peniel will befriend anyone free of charge, Rafe cannot be bought.  Peniel enjoys cartoons, Rafe enjoys stealing Peniel's snacks while pretending to watch cartoons...this list of differences goes on, but its the last example I want to expound upon.
Every day, after naps, the girls get a snack and a sippy cup.  Their snacks are identical, each has the same amount of crackers and same ounces of water.  One of my girls never questions the fairness of snack time...but the other...the middle child...the one who bites...eye balls both snacks to verify equal amounts.  Even still, she must have both snacks and both sippies otherwise, its unfair!  I am convinced that instead of sleeping during her nap time, she is strategizing with charts and graphs and running undercover-op drills in her room in preparation for:  THE SNACK TIME HEIST. 
Peniel loves her cartoons, she takes them very seriously, not one second is to be missed, even if an exploding bladder is a consequence.  Rafe understands this about her older sister, and every day exploits this characteristic.  Every day, I wonder how the snack time heist is going to go down because it changes...Rafe is smart and knows you cant trap a wolf the same way twice so she evolves her strategies daily.  Her most frequented approach goes something like this:  as soon as the cartoon theme music begins to play, she starts to dance and laugh, baiting her sister to join her...Peniel in unable to resist any moment that calls for dancing, so she joins in.  Before the theme music stops Rafe is MIA. As the cartoon begins, Peniel sits down forgetting that she left her snack and sippy on the table...Unfortunately for her, Rafe did not forget about the abandoned snacks and proceeds very quickly and quietly to collect them and eats them as fast as she can chew, sometimes choking herself in the process as she shovels fistful after fistful into her pie hole...she always leaves at least one cracker and some floaties in an almost drained sippy...this is her calling card.  If not for me, the mother, Peniel would never have a snack or anything to drink.  I now have to fill two snack cups and two sippies half full in anticipation of my sneaky bandit Rafe...when she is satisfied that she has won her battle against her cartoon mesmerized prey, she walks off, belly full and plays with her toys.  This is the time that I pull out Peniel's real snack and force her to eat and drink before Rafe gets wind of my under handing, counteracting, null and voiding her klepto ways. I love them both...that is why I let Rafe steal her sisters "decoy" snack, and why I keep a "real" snack for Peniel. 

Cartoons and Me

There must be something wrong with me...all day, I hear myself singing the theme music from my kids' cartoons...mainly the Backyardigans.  I guess just singing the music wouldn't be so bad considering their songs are extremely catchy and easy to remember...the problem for me, and now for my oldest daughter, is that I now know all the dance moves to the songs too!  Every time I hear the Backyardigans come on, its like I have a Pavlov's Dogs moment and singing/dancing is my conditioned response...its almost as if I blackout and have no control over myself until the music stops.  The only reason I am even remotely aware of my hypnotic state when said cartoon music begins is because when I start 'doing my thing' Peniel starts 'doing her thing' and yelling at me to stop!  Clearly,  the days of sanity have passed my by.  I will remember them fondly, but alas, a new day of insanity greets me every morning in the faces of my 3 smallish children...after fully partaking of sanity before kids and insanity after kids...I am not sure that sanity is all its cracked up to be.  Insanity is where I want to live...I like the neighborhood, its a place you can really grow some roots.

The Mass Exodus...to Target.

 There is nothing like having children. There is nothing like having to grocery shop with 3 small children.  Mayhem.  Today, we needed dog food and cat food, and I needed to get out of the house, so I made the executive decision to take my 3 yahoos to Target.  I felt like Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land...there was alot of squabbling, screaming, hair pulling, but we made it.  We must have been a sight.  I had Sedric in the sling kicking wildly, Rafe in the cart shrieking for the fun of it when we pass people, and Peniel hanging off the side of the cart yelling at people to get out of our way.  The funny thing is that I used to roll my eyes at moms like me...ironically, I am "that mom" now...you win universe!
Peniel is famous for being the "reach out and touch somebody" kid.  How many hilariously embarrassing moments I can remember where she would just randomly touch people in the isles. Today, it didnt happen, not because I successfully trained her out of this behavior, but because there arent too many people in Target at 9:30am.  Rafe is our shopping pooper.  The moment you get her in her car seat, she has to do business.  I am always without a clean diaper too, so we gag, we shop, we gag some more, then we go home.  Today, this didnt happen either!  ODD.  Two staples in my shopping headache scenario didnt happen...
Sedric is known as Mr. Spit-up, but not today!  ODD.  Any given shopping trip, I will be baptized in spit up, inhaling poopy diaper smells, and red faced from trying to corral my exuberant non cart riding child, BUT NOT TODAY! Today, I pass GO and collect my $200.  Today, I evaded the perfect storm...tomorrow may be a different story, but today I am enjoying my million dollar shopping moment.

Sticker Bandet Strikes Again!

When in doubt, apply a sticker. 

This is the code by which Peniel lives:

If little sister has taken one too many toys from big sisters over flowing "unsharable" basket...put princess stickers all over her face and hair, tell mom the cat did it...

If mom isn't looking...put princess stickers on the windows, tell her little sister did it...then watch mom struggle for hours to get them off the windows, all the while imagining another place to decorate.

After mom says, "no more princess stickers on the windows or your little sister!"  apply princess stickers to all the doors, present the masterpiece proudly to mom who is holding a screaming child on each hip, watch mom smile because mom knows (as well as smarty pants 3 year old knows) all doors where not mentioned in the above command.

Once all the princess stickers are properly applied around the house, and mom's fingers are numb and raw from scraping and peeling the devilish adhesive nightmares off inappropriate surfaces, find more stickers, perhaps the Mickey Mouse stickers and begin the process of applying them to little sister, windows, and doors because after all,  Mickey Mouse stickers are not princess stickers, and therefore the above rules do not apply to them.

So many stickers, so little time.

Love/Strongly dislike relationship

Peniel and Rafe Joy...sisters, friends, playmates, and on occasion: Arch enemies!  Deep down they love each other and would do anything for a much beloved sister, unless that much beloved sister tries to take a toy from the other or wrestle her to the ground to vent frustration...its these moments that inspire the "dislike" in their relationship.  Today, after countless power struggles over toys, junk mail, dried up markers, and of course lip gloss, the sisters' "dislike" moment was epitomized when Peniel put a long string of beads around her little sisters neck.  Rafe was overjoyed and let out a bubbling chuckle.  She looked at her big sister with eyes that seemed to say, "all sins against me have been absolved my child... these beads fix everything!"  Peniel looked at Rafe, her 3 year old smile curving mischievously as if to say, "now I got you right where I want you."  Two seconds later, Peniel's intentions where made very clear as to why she wanted her sister to wear the beads...in a blink of an eye, Peniel picked up the slack in the beads and began to lead her sister around like a puppy who wasn't leash trained.  The sweet, loving expression that was on Rafe's face a mere two seconds prior was now mutated into the face of an experienced street fighter.  Don't be mistaken, Rafe was not getting hurt in this exchange with her sister...she was getting MAD, and when Rafe gets mad, there are no holds barred!  If Rafe had the power to turn green, she would be the HULK in her moments of outrage.  Peniel knew she was losing the advantage from her initial surprise attack so she pulled and pushed her sister more quickly toward her destination: the bathroom.  I starred with my mouth agape, I am sure I had a puzzled, blank look on my face, how could I not!...All the while I was thinking, "I should say something," but I was overcome with curiosity as to how this epic struggle was going to end.  Peniel made it to the bathroom with her little sister thrashing like a hooked Marlin at the end of the bead leash.  With great effort, Peniel put the leash on one of the cupboard nobs and backed away quickly...her mission accomplished.  She had the timeless look of satisfaction on her face.  Rafe broke free unscathed, but red faced and screaming like an 80's rocker. 
Rafe became wiser today... she will not forget the wrong that was done to her by her much loved/disliked sister...she will have her revenge...maybe tomorrow, maybe on the next full moon...the element of surprise now rests in the mind of a very small child who has inherited her mother's dark gift for mischief.

Kid Moments

How does one go half a day without noticing that her child has colored her entire face with a yellow marker?  Three kids ago, I wouldn’t have imagined this possible...but now, all things are possible for those who parent children!  I can’t believe how much motherhood has changed from the days when I just had one child to today when I have three...the things you notice, worry about, care about, think about morphs into something more realistic when you begin the journey of adding more children. 

I used to care about Peniel being fashionable, wearing cute clothes that had no stains, and always looking like she could model for Baby Gap.  She never had a scraped knee or dirt under her finger nails, she always looked pristine, but that was when she was the only child.  Then came Rafe Joy and pregnancy...Peniel's hair was less than done on most days due to the exhaustion of family expansion and body expansion.  Her clothes a little more stained due to the baby on my hip and the baby in my tummy.  She got a little more dirt in her hair and rocks in her boots when playing outside, got a few more scrapes too...but what would  childhood be if you couldn't wear mismatched socks, a skirt over your dress, an entire tube of chapstick on your lips and shoes on the wrong feet? 

I believe in having memories, and some of the best memories I have of my kids are when they have done or gotten themselves into something that they weren't supposed to do or get into.  I will always remember this day when my Peniel colored her face yellow and I was completely oblivious to how obvious it was!  Even though it took multiple wet wipes to clean her up while two other kids were screaming for my attention, it was worth it for the sake of adding another special Peniel moment to my memory.

Next time something goes awry in your parenting, take a snap shot, enjoy the mishap for half a second before you get upset at the extra work on your part to fix the mess because it is the imperfect moments in life that mean the most!

I'll CHAI if I want to...

every morning I make a Chai Tea Latte while Peniel, my very vocally expressive 3 year old, is watching a cartoon...and every morning she covers her ears, gives me the stink eye and yells, "TOO LOUDER MOMMY!"  and every morning I pretend i dont see or hear her protests and keep steaming.  She is too young to understand that the entire day hinges on this precisely steamed (to 170 degrees), perfectly foamed cup of pipping hot euphoria.  I actually think that the opposition to my making it, makes it tastes better...so keep screaming kid #1, keep screaming!  In my estimation, and my estimations are always correct, I have earned my Chai...when I wake up every morning looking like the bride of Frankenstein with bags under my eyes the size of Rhode Island, and all that i own smells heavily of kid...If 2 mins during a cartoon rerun (that my oldest has seen 100 times) is the only time I can make my Chai, come hell or high water I will have my Chai even if it kills me!  Every Chai is a precious gift to a very tired mom, I dont believe in wasting precious gifts not any day of the week!