Don't Forget Your Manners!

I try to stress the importance of saying please and thank you. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. It occurred to me that I may not always be the best role model in this area, so I've made it my goal to try to remember to say please and thank you more often myself.

This morning, Jimmy dropped N and I off at her school so I could go with her on her field trip to the Zoo. The whole first grade was going. As Jimmy dropped us off, he informed me that his plan was to take B and O to get their hair cut. You may remember that I tried this with B not so long ago. It didn't go so well. So when Jimmy informed me oh so non-chalantly that he was just going to march them into the barber shop for hair cuts, my first thought was....Please. Hey, that counts toward my goal, right?

N and I had a great, if exhausting, day at the zoo. We saw giant pandas, we saw elephants, we saw lemurs who appeared to be mating. That was a nice touch. Right up there with all the educational signs in front of the panda exhibit that explained the difficulties of mating in captivity. A word to the wise: If you have a pre-schooler who is on the verge of reading, and you think how great it will be to have her reading by kindergarten, think again. Thank you very much, National Zoo. Hey, there's another one toward my goal!

Eventually, we arrived back at N's school, and J and the boys picked us up. Of course, I immediately looked at their hair...which had actually been cut. Quite short, in fact. Actually, it was a little too short for my taste, plus I hadn't asked J to save a lock of O's hair, since in all honesty, I did not think this whole hair cut thing would be happening. But hey, at least their hair got cut, and maybe Jimmy is just better at the hair cut thing than I am. I'm okay with that. After all, there are plenty of other things that are more my area of expertise, thank you very much. It's not like he's going to start going to the grocery store with them or anything. Please.

Of course, I wanted details that Jimmy was just not providing. How did this all go down? Did they give you a hard time? Or did they just hop up in those barbershop chairs and say "Hair cut, please!" (Or, in O's case, Hair cup pease!)? For some reason, Jimmy was not forthcoming. In fact, he seemed a little agitated, but I wasn't sure if that was directly related to the hair cut experience, or to the fact that he had just spent six hours with two of our children. All.By.Himself.

As I was washing B and O's new short hair in the bathtub this evening, I was thinking that I should say thank you to my husband for spending the day with B and O so that I could go with N on her field trip. And just as I was thinking that, B shared some of the knowledge that he apparently gained from spending the day with his dad.

"Mom, this @%$ water is too hot."

Unlike another recent attempt at this word, this time his pronounciation and context were absolutely perfect. Almost like he's been practicing. Not that he needs practice. Please.

I suspect he's just a quick learner.

Thank You Very Much.

O let me take a picture of his hair cut. B told me there was just no #%#@ way.

On Being a Good Shopper...

(Disclaimer: Yes, I realize that I have written several times about the grocery store. I actually thought about not writing this, because I didn't want people to start thinking of me as the mom who writes about the grocery store all the time. But the reality is, I have three kids and a husband who need to eat, and I have two kids still in diapers. Like it or not, the grocery store is a big part of my life. Yes, I find that sad, too. Fortunately for me, the grocery store is also right next to the liquor store).

So, I really try to be a good shopper. Really, I do. I don't use the express lane if I have more than 15 items. OK, fine, sometimes 16, but that's it. Although sometimes I do legitimately miscount and find that I have 17 or 18, but that's an honest mistake, so its forgiven, right? I smile at people even when I don't really feel like it. I engage in some degree of small talk with the cashiers, even when I wish they would just ring up my groceries and not ask me if I'm buying Tylenol because I have a headache (Nope. Cramps. Want me to tell you more about that?), or if the kids get their red hair from my husband (Nope. Mailman. Or maybe the UPS guy. Who can keep track?).  I don't leave my cart in the middle of the aisle--well, unless there are glass jars on the shelves at O's eye level--then I figure blocking the aisle is preferable to our fellow shoppers having to dodge flying shards of glass.

I even follow the shopping cart rules--well, OK sometimes B rides in the back, but he never, ever stands up back there. Not for very long, anyway. I even put my cart back in the little cart house--well, assuming we're not parked half a mile away from the cart house, and  the kids aren't already strapped into their car seats. I mean, people have actually gotten arrested for child endangerment for leaving their kids in the car while they returned their cart. Sorry, but if comes down to kids or carts, I'm choosing kids.

My point is, I do try. And obviously, the people at our grocery store know this, since if you'll recall, I was personally selected to be a member of the elite Manager's Club at our store.  But yesterday, I'm thinking maybe they forgot that I'm a member of the elite Manager's Club. I had taken B and O to the store, and we were checking out, when B was clearly getting restless. O was in the cart, but of course I picked the cart with the seat belt that doesn't work. The very talkative cashier is handing me my receipt as B decides to push the cart, with O in it but not strapped in, away from the cash register and into the Muppets DVD display. The display tips over. The cart, fortunately, does not. Several Muppets DVDs are on the floor, but most are still at least halfway in the cardboard display, which is kind of dented and leaning precariously on one side.

"Oh God" the cashier says as she rolls her eyes. I smile, say thank you, and put out my hand, thinking she will hand me my receipt, since obviously I need to go. Now. B backs the cart out of the DVD display. O is still in it, but I'm thinking not for long. The lady is beginning her spiel. I know this spiel, because I hear it every time I am here. Thank customer by name, tell customer how many gas points she has, tell customer how many bonus point she has. Hey, I have an idea for another one. How about, "assume customer has half a clue and can actually read all of this off of her own damn receipt when she gets home".

"Thank you Mrs...uh, lets see.." she is staring at my receipt, stuck on the part where she's supposed to thank me by name.
"Its OK, thanks, but I really have to go", I tell her. She ignores me and finds my last name. B is now pushing the cart and O toward the exit. "Lets see, you have...:" She is looking to see how many gas points I have.
"Its OK. I can read it", I tell her with a smile, "I really need to go now."
She ignores me. She happily tells me how many gas points I have, then looks at me expectantly, as if she has just given me a gift, and I'm supposed to thank her. I think she may be waiting for me to hug her. I want to remind her that I did spend a ridiculous amount of money on groceries, after all, to get those gas points.
She is still not handing over the receipt.
B narrowly avoids pushing the cart into an elderly shopper.
"It looks like you have..." She is obviously not going to stop until she also tells me how many bonus points I have.
I contemplate grabbing the receipt out of her hand. I am no longer smiling.
B still has a ways to go before he reaches the exit, but I cannot believe that she is holding me and my receipt hostage while my three-year-old pushes my unrestrained one-year-old away in a shopping cart. She already saw what he could do to a DVD display. Stacks of cookies and glass bottles of iced tea are now in his path. She ain't seen nothing yet.

Finally, she finds the information she is looking for on my receipt, and tells me how many reward points I have. Like I give a soon to be flying fig newton. I grab the receipt and catch up with B and O just before B rams the shopping cart into the back of some unsuspecting shopper.

I had planned to pick up the DVD display, but in my haste to catch up with B and O, I didn't have a chance. I decide I really don't care.

And then, from behind me, I hear the cashier's voice loudly say, " Um, excuse me? The Muppets have a little problem back here".

She is clearly talking to me.  I'm thinking that whatever problem the Muppets have is nothing compared to the one she's going to have if I have to turn this shopping cart-with one unrestrained child and another now hanging illegally onto the side--around. I contemplate doing just that, but since I suddenly have an incredibly strong desire to throw something at her, I decide it's probably better to just keep walking. As we walk to the car, I fantasize about telling her exactly where she can put Kermit and Miss Piggy.

I also want to ask her if she knows who I am. After all, I am a  member of the elite Manager's Club. And they don't just hand those memberships out to anyone. You have to really be someone.

Someone who spends way too much time and money at this store. Someone who just left Kermit and Miss Piggy laying on the floor, without even offering them a hand up. Like I give a frog's leg.

Someone who's going to start having her groceries delivered to her home. Very, very soon.

The Benefits of Membership...

I don't really consider myself much of a "joiner", but I am, in fact, a member of several groups.
I belong to a Church.
I belong to my professional association.
I belong to the PTA.
I belong to Girl Scouts (ha..that one threw you, didn't it? Its true).

Recently, I become a part of another kind of group, though I hesitate to tell you about it because membership is apparently reserved for an elite few, and I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging. On top of that, I didn't even have to sign up. They chose me.

You see, a few weeks ago, when I had just paid at the grocery store and was walking toward the exit, a shift manager walked over, greeted me by name, congratulated me, and stood there smiling at me. I wondered why she was congratulating me. I briefly wondered if I was pregnant and had just been too tired to notice, but she quickly explained that I had been selected to be a member of the Manager's Club at the grocery store.

The benefits, she assured me, are endless. I get three cents a gallon off gas--and all the time, not just when I spend ridiculous amounts of money on groceries. Though, come to think of it, I spend ridiculous amounts of money on groceries all the time. I can also get prescriptions filled any time I want. Well, any time that the store is open. And there's a pharmacist there. I am even part of their concierge service. I have no idea what this means. But it must be good. And get this:  I have the managers direct phone number. They even wrote it on a card for me. I'm sure you could never get this by, say, asking for it. As she congratulated me yet again, I started wondering why there weren't balloons for this huge occasion, or streamers. Or champagne.

As I listened to her describe all these great benefits, and congratulate me a few more times, I was somewhat unsettled by the fact that she had just showed up out of nowhere, knew me by name, and knew that I had apparently just surpassed some standard that now made me eligible for membership in this elite club. I'm guessing the standard might have something to do with the ridiculous amount of money that I spend there. Or the ridiculous frequency with which I shop there. I'm guessing both. In any case, since this was clearly such a huge accomplishment from their perspective, they could have at least had a banner made up, "Congratulations! You have now spent the equivalent on a college education on groceries! And, you shop here an average of twelve times a week!" Of course, they would know all about my shopping and spending habits since I put in my little savings card number every time I'm there. Still, there was something rather big brother-ish about all this. The fact that the shift manager cornered me after I had left the register confirmed what I had long suspected: someone has been sitting in that little manager booth, watching us as we shop.

With this realization, my grocery store life flashed before my eyes.
 B throwing ice cream the length of the frozen food aisle like it's his own personal football field.
 B and O bowling with canned peas down the canned good aisle.
 N pirouetting through the produce section, occasionally stopping only to do the splits in front of the broccoli.
B and O playing catch with the tomatoes, and the lemons, and the cantaloupe. None of which we bought.
B strutting down the juice aisle, loudly singing, "Come on everybody help me raise this roof, raise this roof, raise this roof..."
N and B physically fighting, and screaming, repeatedly, over who gets to sit in the car cart.
B briefly napping on a pile of rolls...and me rearranging them to hide the smooshed ones.
O repeatedly throwing loaves of bread on the floor..and me putting them in the back so no one would know.

I'd always wondered if someone was watching, but this confirmed it. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. I took the information on my elite Manager's Club membership as the shift manager congratulated me yet again, and told me to please make sure I let them know if there was anything they could do to make my shopping experience more enjoyable.

Well, since they asked...I'm thinking I'll request the following:

Since you seem to know when I'm there, how much I spend, and when I check out, could you pay closer attention when you see me pull into the parking lot? When you do, please send someone out to meet me, with a cart and a grande vanilla latte from your Starbucks. Preferably bring a car cart, since the kids always drive me crazy wanting those. This way, they will be much easier to handle for whoever is pushing them around the store while I am sitting in the car, drinking my grande vanilla latte.

While you're doing that, if you could keep your eyes out for a few things I've lost in previous trips, I'd appreciate it:

I think I lost my patience in the frozen food aisle. If you find even some of it, that would be great.
I'm fairly certain I lost most of my sanity in the produce section. But maybe it was canned goods.
I definitely lost my mind in the bread aisle. I think I got some of it back, but I'm hoping the rest of it is still floating around there, cause I don't know where else it would be at this point.
And you may want to look for some of my dignity in the feminine hygiene aisle. I think I also lost some of my hearing there--though perhaps selectively--after being asked "What are those? Well then what are those? Why do you need those? and Why don't I need those?" one too many times.

I know I don't need to explain. Of course you know all of this, since you've been watching us.
That brings me to the last thing I'd like to ask you for.
A check for 61, 943.00 dollars.

That's roughly what we've spent at your store over the past six years.
I figure it's also approximately what you would have had to pay a team of musicians, athletes, dancers, and comedians to entertain you the way that we have over that same period of time.
And you've been getting it all for free.

Once you do that, we'll enroll you in our elite club, Parents Tired of Shopping without being Drugged. You can remember us by our acronym, PTSD.

Congratulations!
The benefits are endless.

Judgement Day

Sometimes it feels like every day is judgement day when you're a mom....

When N was three, she started taking dance. B was an infant, and, for most of the first year at least, I would take her to class and sit in the waiting room, rocking B in his carrier, drinking coffee, and talking to other moms. I remember thinking , "Well this isn't bad. I can do this". This week, as I took N to dance, B and O were with me, as they always are unless Jimmy happens to get home from work early that day. This week, as I thought back to how it was that first year that N took dance, I realized that this was one of those occasions where a previous thought comes back to bite you in the...um, arm.

N goes to a great dance studio, that is just a little on the small side. There's not a lot of room in the waiting area. This is sometimes difficult for B and O, because while N is doing something that she loves just in the other room, they don't really get to do the things that they love. For example, jumping from chair to chair is not encouraged. Standing at the door watching the dancers and doing your own dance while screaming "Hi N!!" is not encouraged. Running and screaming in the waiting room-- not encouraged. Continually filling up and pouring out cups of water from the water cooler--also not encouraged. All of this is, of course, completely understandable, but as you can see, some of B and O's favorite activities are highly frowned upon. That does not, however, prevent them from participating in them anyway. Usually, though, we manage to keep the disruption to a minimum. This week, for some reason, we did not. B was restless. O was restless. I was tired from spending much of the previous day cleaning up syrup and peanut butter. Although I read to them, distracted them with toys, and took frequent breaks to the bar next door to let them run around outside, it was clearly not enough.

When we came in from outside toward the end of the class, B decided he was fascinated with the long vertical blinds in the picture window. I asked him nicely not to touch. He ignored me. I told him firmly not to touch. He ignored me. I did the best mean mommy voice I could, considering we were in a small waiting room surrounded by other people. He ignored me. Instead, he gave the blinds a yank. I didn't see or hear anything fall, though it's possible that something did fall and I missed it because, after all, I was also chasing O during this time. After a moment, when we had moved on to other things, an older woman who was there with her grand-daughter came over, started fidgeting with the blinds, and said, "Oh here, let me help you fix that".  Help me fix that? Hmmmm. While I appreciated the, um, helpfulness, I had to wonder... are you sure the word for this is helpful? Cause it just didn't feel all that helpful from my end. It felt like...something other than helpfulness. Several thoughts went through my mind, but I decided that maybe, like beauty, helpfulness is in the eye of the beholder, and I put a smile on my face that clearly said, "Whatever".

B eventually settled down and even shared his cars from home with another little boy. As N's class ended, I asked B to nicely ask for his car back since we were leaving soon. He did--very nicely- and the little boy looked at him and said ,"NO". B came back to me to report. "Mom, he said he's not giving it back.". "It's OK, B, " I told him. "Just ask him again nicely", I said a little louder this time, just in case his mom had missed the first exchange. And B walked calmly back to him, and said in his loudest three-year-old tough guy voice, "HEY! YOU GIVE ME MY CAR BACK RIGHT NOW!". "B, not like that". I told him. The little boy's mom glared at me. Maybe I'm supposed to make B apologize, I thought. That might be the right thing to do. But he did ask nicely the first time. I no longer knew what the right thing to do was. What I did know was that it was hot, crowded, my kids were out of control, we were all getting hungry, and I wanted to leave. More than anything. I also knew that trying to make B apologize for yelling at someone who just refused to give him back his own toy was not going to end well. So I just smiled. Whatever.

We finally escaped left with some shred of our dignity in tact, though I'm quite sure we were the talk of several dinner tables that night. I was feeling somewhat defeated as I took NBO to the grocery store to pick up a few things. O started grabbing everything out of the cart and throwing it. I put it in. He took it out. I told him to put it back. He ignored me and threw it. N would pick it up, unless B got it first, in which case it turned into a game of catch in the frozen food aisle. I would then tell B to put it back in the cart. He would ignore me. You get the picture.

We had been playing this game for fifteen minutes or so and I knew it was time to get out of there, when O threw a pint of Ben and Jerrys frozen broccoli onto the floor, and B grabbed it before N could. B ran to the opposite end of the aisle, and threw that ice cream broccoli back to us as hard as he could. Wow. What a great arm that child has. He's clearly picked something up from watching football with daddy.

I don't think the couple that turned the corner at that exact moment appreciated what a great arm B has, though. No, the ice cream broccoli didn't hit them. However, their disdain was pretty apparent. It was quite obvious that they were appalled by the scene they had stumbled upon: a toddler emptying the contents of our cart onto the floor, his three-year-old brother using the frozen food aisle as his personal football field, and their sister and now nearly deranged mother watching, laughing, and doing absolutely nothing about it.

OK--maybe it wasn't entirely appropriate for me to give B a high five and tell him what a great throw that was. Whatever.

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