That's Mine!

Matt likes most food. He eats most things I buy and make and rarely asks for something I don't normally get, but for some reason, I almost always ask him if he wants me to pick him up anything special when I am heading out shopping. He always gives me a look like "Why do you always ask me this? My answer is always the same!"

Well, this week, he actually made a request: beef jerky! I think the most recent package from my parents (which always includes jerky for Matt) got him thinking about it. Since he ate that entire package in under 5 minutes, he must have had a hankering for more!

So while I was at Costco, I got quite a few giant bags, with the intention of rationing Matt by hiding some of them. He was quite pleased with a large stash of his favorite snack.

He was pleased, that is, until I informed him that all three of his sons love beef jerky as much as he does! I thought he'd be pleased and call it "dude style," but his first reaction was the opposite: "What? You gave them some of my jerky? That's mine! They're going to eat it all!"

Haha... now he knows how I feel when he polishes off something from the fridge that I just got!I know the point in buying food is to eat it, but I hate seeing it disappear so quickly. So I completely understand his reaction; it was just so funny coming from him!

Too Good To Keep It Quiet

As I was racing through the aisles at Costco a few weeks ago with all my kids riding on/hanging onto the cart in some life-threatening (or, at least, toe/foot-threatening) way, we stumbled upon the coveted "snack lady." This time, she was handing out tiny helpings of frozen deliciousness: Icees - the boys new favorite frozen treat.

All three of my boys gobbled theirs down in no time and I had to keep "circling the block" to "happen" upon this poor little old lady who was so slowly and methodically cutting them up into tiny, bite-sized pieces and even more slowly arranging the individual bites into a nice little arrangement on her tray before she'd let anyone touch them.

I tried to avoid her evil eye and ease her annoyance at us for taking so many of her little creations of art, by picking up two boxes of what she was promoting, making sure she saw me put them in the cart, amidst cheers from my kids. It's not every day mom actually buys the yummy treat they ask for!

These are loaded with sugar I'm sure, and the bright colors dye my boys tongues and lips green, red, and, worst of all, blue, but they are a fun and refreshing treat on these hot summer days. They can get them themselves and open them themselves. Other than the permission part, it is a mom's-help-free snack!

The bad news is Jack. He also loves these things but isn't quite so good at eating them. They are too cold on his teeth, so he never bites them, just licks and licks until they are melting all over him. He hasn't quite gotten the squeezing technique down either, so he just spills it all over himself, drops it out of the wrapper, and picks it up with his hands, melting the terribly bright juice all over his hands, arms, face, clothes, and anything in a 3 foot radius.

So we now try to sneak a snack without Jack knowing. It is a difficult thing to attempt. Poor little guy... I'm not trying to deprive him, but I do hate that mess!

Yesterday, the big boys successfully snagged one for themselves out of the freezer, and used their super secret spy moves to smuggle it outside to eat it before Jack was any wiser. I did my part by keeping him occupied with something else, and the mission was going down smoothly. Ben finished his, snuck back in, threw his garbage away. So far so good. But then Mitchell came in a few minutes later, waving his empty wrapper at me, saying, "Look mom! I finished mine without letting Jack see me even once!" Jack took one look at that wrapper, dropped what he was doing, and ran to the freezer, shouting, "Icee! Icee! Pees! Pees!"

Ah shucks... Mitchell just has such a hard time keeping good things secret! Even this time, when he was trying, he still couldn't keep from letting Jack in on it. He will do the same thing any time he gets something Ben doesn't get. He will go out of his way to find Ben wherever he is and either show him what he got or tell him all about it. It really is impossible to just give something to Mitchell. It's just too good for him to keep it quiet.

When Will I Ever Learn?

This afternoon, a simple trip to Costco turned into quite a long ordeal simple because I can't seem to learn from my own mistakes.

Let me begin by quickly telling you that a few weeks ago, while helping Mitchell on his bike, I had Ben push Jack in the stroller so I could focus a bit more on Mitchell.  Jack started to get fussy and bored, so I gave him my garage door opener to play with, which did the trick!  Everything went smoothly until I got back to my garage and could not find the opener anywhere.  After retracing my steps not once, not twice, but THREE times and still no luck, I ended up having to hop a fence and open it from the inside.  So I have already lost a garage door opener because I gave it to Jack to keep "safe" for me.  Lesson learned, right?  Apparently not.

Jack was already fussy when I put him in the giant-sized cart at Costco, so what did I do?  I gave him his favorite toy: my car keys.  My thinking was that he is right there in front of me and keys are noisy.  If I don't see him drop them, certainly I will hear him!  Well, drop them he did and I didn't realize this until we were all the way out at the car, ready to load up.  I searched for them for a moment before it hit me that I had done it again: I had given something important to Jack and he had not taken care of it like the responsible and mature 8-month-old he is!  

I told Ben that the keys were lost (no, not a very positive way to tell a 5-year-old) and he panicked.  He got quite scared and started crying.  He thought we were stuck at Costco forever.  "This is terrible, mom!  What are we going to do!  We'll never leave now!  Those keys are lost forever!"  He wasn't whining or complaining, he just really was concerned about this!  I assured him that the keys had to be in the store somewhere still and if he could calm down and help me, we'd find them quickly.

Well, we did not find them quickly.  We walked all over Costco, searching for keys and trying to keep our tired baby from having a melt-down.  After a while, we gave up looking and went back up front to see if anyone had turned them in yet.  While I was there, I met another crazed mom with two little girls who was waiting for the very same thing - lost keys to turn up!  At one point during my cruising around, searching for the keys, I bumped into yet another mom who was looking everywhere for her Costco card!  Apparently, I am not the only mom with only half a brain when it comes to keeping a baby quiet and happy in the store.  

The keys turned up and this search only added an extra hour to our Costco run.  Ben breathed a sigh of relief that he would not have to actually live at Costco, Mitchell had a great time during that extra hour climbing around on the cart and eating extra snacks, and Jack tired himself out with plenty of crying and squirming and making mommy sweat.  

Have I learned my lesson this time or will I give Jack more important tools as "toys" in the future?  Only time will tell I suppose.