gettin' back into it

This week has been so crazy with getting home late on Sunday night and getting back into the routine.  Although we had a great time on vacay, I am thrilled to be back home.  Why is it that taking care of your kids seems so much harder when you are not on your home turf?  And I hardly had to do anything with them, because they had doting grandparents and aunts and uncles who played with them like crazy, but it still seemed hard.  Here's a pic of the fam in all our reunion tee shirt glory...

 

Oh yes, we wear matching tee shirts in public.  Here is the whole group...

 

Are we just the coolest or what?

Anyway, this week so far I have worked one night, helped out at church another night, and taken the girls to a play date downtown Farmington on the night Nate worked.  I have paid tuition for Sasha's preschool, signed her up for a dance class with the famous Julie Peanut, returned overdue library DVD's, picked up a few freebies at the drug stores, bought some new hair products for Alexis at my fave hair store, had a play date with a new friend, gone to Bible study, and hit up the grocery store (twice).  I was telling Nate the exciting tales of my errand running and he said "It's like you're doing things Moms do!"  

As for the girlies, they have not gotten the memo that we had a time change.  Alexis is still sleeping in until 9:00am every morning (yay!) and Sasha is laying awake making mischief in her bedroom until 9:00pm every night (not so yay).  I have had a lot of discipline issues with Sasha this week, which is probably to be expected, but I found one experience in Walgreens rather funny.  We were picking up two items, one of them being crayons.  Sasha was holding the box and when I told her it was time to go check out, she ran in the opposite direction.  I told her I was going to the cashier and she better get her booty up there with me.  Well, Sasha continued to run to the back of the store, and ran even faster as I considered chasing after her.  So I let her run away, grabbed another box of crayons, and bought my two items. 

After I had them safely stowed in my bag, I went to find Sasha.  The second she heard me coming, she giggled and ran away again.  It was actually kind of funny to hear her devious little laugh and her fast footsteps running away from me, but of course it was maddening as well.  When she was within earshot, I told her that I had already bought the item I was carrying and since she ran away, she wasn't going to get the crayons.  She threw herself on the ground and cried and screamed.  I took the box of crayons out of her hand and put them away and we walked out of the store.  I never told her that I got the crayons anyway, and it was the perfect consequence for her behavior.  She has been talking about this for the past two days, so hopefully it sunk in.  However, that type of behavior is extremely common in stores, especially since Alexis came onto the scene and I am outnumbered.  If anyone has any (good) advice, feel free to share!  But I am not about to chase my three year old down the aisles of Walgreens with a 15 month old in the cart.  Can you imagine how ridiculous that would look?

But I digress...

In summary, happy to be home, happy to be busy, and love my family!  :)

Comments

[Amber]

I can so relate! My idea...don't take the kids w/you to the store! LOL. That seriously is my best strategy - sad when grocery shopping is "me" time! One thing I have done w/ J is allow him a pony ride when we leave if he has good behavior. I give him continual verbal prompts - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I also distract him with snacks.

Anyhow...sounds like you used some good love & logic! :-)

[Kelly]

LOL, oh, Nate cracks me up! And haha, I've gotten to where it's gotta be a REALLY good deal for me to take the kids along on a drugstore trip. It's such stressful ordeal!! Glad you had such a great trip!!

[Amy]

Please share, who is Julie Peanut? I'm looking for a dance class for Soph, but one that won't interfere with everything else we have going on. (see, i did it!)

[Heidi]

Way to go Amy! See, wasn't it fun??? The famous Julie Peanut is our dearly loved neighbor who is Sasha's age. (Peanut is a nickname). Sign Sophie up for the Monday night class at Mid American Pom!