Hump Day

I've been in an anti-social mood all this week. I'm not sure what it is, but I've just felt like keeping to myself, a lot.

I had trouble falling asleep last night, so I was up until almost 1. Then I was woke at 6 a.m. to grab a shower and get X-man and I ready before I needed to be at work at 8:15 a.m. It must have been kind of early/rough on him, too, because I dropped him off at school at 7:50 a.m. and he apparently took a 2-hour nap today, which is unheard of any more.

I was fine at school for the most part. I started with the fours and then ran down to the 2-3 year old room (I could see Lightning McGavin across the hall eating snack--so freaking cute), but I didn't get to go over and say hi to him. As it was the 2-3 year olds were on some kind of rampage. So, it took all three of us to keep them together.

After work, I ran some signed papers to the accountant that MacTroll had told me we just needed to file at home, but I got a call yesterday that they were supposed to be returned to the accountant so he could actually file our electronic taxes. Ooops. I made a few more errands and by the time I was done, I was starving, tired and kind of sad.

I ate lunch when I got home and then went to my room and put my head down on my pillow. The ceiling fan was on and the windows were open and a nice breeze was coming into the room. I could have fallen asleep, but instead, I chose to watch Glee. The web site froze on me 2/3 of the way into the episode, so I took it as a sign, got up and went for a run. I was going to do my normal 60-minute route, but I got 2 miles into it and overheated. It was 86 degrees outside and my body just didn't want to move. So I gave it until after 3 miles and then I reset my iPod and walked my butt home. I think it was a weather wall. Kind of like when the weather turns cold and your lungs don't want to go. In the heat, my head just died. I was thirsty. My lips felt chapped and I had all this dry crap in my mouth. So I drank a lot and had some fruit at home. Then I showered, did the laundry and took off to pick up X-man.

We were supposed to go to Target to look for sandals and flip flops. But he kind of dragged his feet at dinner, so we ended up going to see the Ultimate Basketball Challenge at Huff Hall first. It was a basketball competition to raise money for the Wheelchair Athletics programs at the U of I and Coaches Vs. Cancer fund. X-man was into the idea that the athletes were still playing the game even from their chairs. He laughed along with the rest of the crowd when U of I players who were not used to being in a wheelchair missed shots. He also got to see the WonderTwins, which was pretty much the highlight of our visit.

Afterwards, X-man didn't want to go home. So we went to Target to look for sandals, but he freaked out when we got there that Target wasn't a real shoe store. So we tried the Tradehome shoes in the mall, but they didn't have any little kid sandals. So we ended up at Gap, where he found two pairs of flip flops for $6 each and a pair of sandals for $25. I used my $20 coupon and we got out of there for $17.50.

We drove straight from Target to the airport to greet MacTroll. X-man was pissed off that security had roped off the stairs and shut down the escalator at the airport (the thinks escalators are like carnival rides). Then after MacTroll got there, he hugged his dad, pushed him toward the baggage claim and told him to go get his bag. When the "warning" lights and horns started going off at the baggage claim, X-man flipped out completely. "Get the bag! Get the bag!" He was afraid the weird black flappy things were going to eat the luggage.

Now we're home and MacTroll has fallen asleep while putting X-man to bed. Today was also our dog Riley's 9th birthday. We sang happy birthday to him at breakfast. He enjoyed a special birthday dental treat snack with his friend Zoe tonight before bed.

Tomorrow is a full day again, so I've got to keep up, which is hard because I feel so far behind.

Shopping Shenanigans

I didn't enter this motherhood thing lightly. It took a long, long time for MacTroll and I to decide we wanted to have a baby. The 13 years prior to the X-era was spent watching people and their children.

I'd stand in line at the Target as some everyday mother tried to negotiate her way through the checkout line with a baby in the cart, a toddler running in circles, an older kid crying for a candy bar and a pre-teen pretending not to know who these people were. My heart felt bad for her. She had a tough job doing an every day thing. And when she raised her voice or grabbed ahold of her toddler's hand and kneeled down and told the kid how it was gonna be -- which lead to the time bomb going off and the kid falling apart, I looked away like I had completely invaded something intimate and personal. 

KTDID and I bit the bullet when I first moved to C-U and drove up to Schaumburg to Ikea. Before we went, we decided what we wanted. We took the box measurements from the web site and decided which car would work better. Ultimately, we decided on her Honda Civic (the choice was between the Honda or my VW Golf). We successfully navigated Ikea on a Saturday without 1) murdering each other, 2) screaming at each other or 3) watching someone's marriage fail in the checkout line. 

We successfully packed up her car with our items, but while we were doing so, we were parked next to a family driving a Suburu Outback. They had two boys around 6-8 years of age and the parents were so livid with each other they were barely talking. The car just kept filling up with bags and boxes of crap. The backseat went down and still the crap piled up against the windows. When the car was full the mother said, "You take this home and unload, the boys and I will go get lunch and wait for you to come back.

The father replied, "If I leave here, I'm NEVER coming back. Get in the car."

So the family drove away with one child sitting on the arm rest area between the two front seats and the smaller child on Mom's lap, with her seat pushed so far forward, her legs were slammed against the dashboard. 

A family member once told me a story about how if her kids threw a tantrum in a store, her husband would just walk away. He was so embarrassed by the people staring at his kid, he would just abandon his wife and leave her to take care of it. 

It feels like eavesdropping, watching these families and hearing their stories. But now that I'm a parent, I realize that when you're in the moment, you do what needs to be done -- whatever the hell that might be. And sometimes when you're pushing your shopping cart out to your car, you're smacking yourself in the forehead for not having more patience or for having manhandled your kid into the cart to get him from tearing apart a display. Most of the time, if you are the primary parent to your kids you know that 10 percent of the time your kid acts crabby, because he's a kid. He gets tired and hungry and irritable. He doesn't talk or deal with logic. He just feels and reacts. 

For example, I used to take X-man grocery shopping with me all the time. He loved it, particularly if we were at Meijer (the deli ladies there give out free cheese to the kids). Now we mostly shop at the Schnuck's because it's 6 miles closer to our house and has better produce.

But the moment we walk in, it's like running through a maze. 

Will he flip out if one of the two carts with little cars at the front aren't available for us? Will he stay in the little car, if we do get a cart? Will he be angry when we stop at the deli counter and the employees don't give out freebies? Will he toss a fit if MacTroll tries to push him in the cart (which is apparently not allowed these days)? Will he throw a fit if MacTroll wanders too far away from the cart to run to get something Looseyfur forgets? If they move the display of Cars cars near the cereal aisle and he sees them -- will he lose his mind because I won't let him look at them or buy them? 

It's so much easier to do the shopping now without him. But sometimes, I look at the cart with the kid seat filled with bread and eggs and delicate fruit instead of my sweet boy's face and I miss him. I remember when he could first sit there at 8 months, and I'd bend over the cart as I walked down the baby food and diaper aisles and kiss his head as he looked around curious about all the people and "stuff."

He'd giggle when I'd open musical cards for him (something he still enjoys now -- he thinks they're books). 

And he'd smile at all the senior citizens and babies as we cruised past.

I'm hoping one day I'll get my little errand running buddy back. After all, my eldest nephew still loves Target at nearly 13... but right now, I'm okay with going it alone to get the job done faster, so we can spend some quality time together as a family doing fun things rather than spending it miserable in a grocery store.