Confession - the Kit Kat incident

Forgive me Super WalMart, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.

I knew it was wrong, I don't know what came over me but when I saw her there with her face covered in chocolate, I just lost it. I mean she'd been trying my patience ever since we entered the automatic doors. The greeters recoiled in fear when they saw she was untethered. Fellow shoppers did their best to avoid her in the hopes that she wouldn't target their shopping cart, commandeer it and push it directly into the 6 foot display of pantiliners on aisle 6.

She was a force to be reckoned with. She scoffed at the confines of the cart. She spat out the pacifier with her shrieks of anguish. She mopped the floors with a face full of tantrum tears. Other mothers embraced their children lovingly and vowed to be forever grateful that they had such an easy child.

Finally I reached the end of my epic journey - the checkout. I was almost free and clear and while placing the contents of my overflowing cart onto the conveyor belt I glanced down to see her with the Kit Kat - half eaten. I knew what I should have done. I should have laughed in one of my patented "oh how entertaining these little angels can be" laughs, handed the candy to the cashier and asked that they ring it up since my sweetpea had already ingested the majority of the shiny wrapper. But I didn't. I glanced around to make sure no one had seen it and then threw the open candy back on the shelf behind a box of king sized peanut M&M's.

Was it embarrasment, frustration? I don't know. I stand before you in shame and with sincere regret. I'll throw an extra 58 cents at you the next time I'm there. Oh and you might want to rethink that endcap full of light bulbs over in the hardware aisle. Thankfully she was distracted by the air freshener display in automotive.

He draws the line at indecent exposure

Over the years Matt has grown accustomed to my sense of humor and no longer argues with me when I ask him to make a stupid pose with an inanimate object. See the example above. All I had to do was ask him if he loved me and when he replied in the affirmative I told him that I needed him to pretend that inflated T-Rex was about to eat him. I even once convinced him to fondle the breast of a female statue at a mini golf course (I seem to have lost that picture, perhaps he found it and destroyed it).

There are times though where he still refuses me. For example - as he stood in front of this replica moon in the Kansas cosmosphere he repeatedly declined to grace me with the image of 2 moons. I mean come on - it would have been hilarious and the surveilance camera wasn't even pointed anywhere near it.

Just call me the Lunch Lady

We’re currently hosting our 2 nieces and our nephew at our house and while it’s been fun so far, and Aaron is in absolute heaven with his live-in playmates, there have been challenges as well.

One of the biggest challenges for me is meal preparation. Cooking is not one of my favorite tasks (which is somewhat odd since eating is) and I often struggle to cook something for myself and my own 2 kids and now I’ve got 3 more to worry about. Last night I opted for chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and peas – a healthy meal balanced with items from each of the three processed food groups (processed powdered cheese, processed chicken parts formed into nugget shapes and heavily salted canned vegetables).

While the preparation was no different than usual, the quantity was and I spent what seemed like 15 minutes just trying to calculate how many nuggets to bake and whether or not I should do one box of Mac and Cheese or two. Once preparation was complete – putting it all on plates was an elaborate assembly line production which conjured up images of school days in the cafeteria. At one point I wondered if I should be wearing a hair net.

Tomorrow I think I’ll serve up some mashed potatoes with an ice cream scoop.