I Don't Buy Snowpants in August!

        Recently (the dead of February) both of my children ran out of mittens and neck warmers. For those of you who don’t know what a neck warmer is, it’s a nifty invention that is basically a scarf, made into a tube that fits around your neck and lacks the potential to hang yourself. This is a particular benefit in my house where my children embark upon daily quests to kill one another.

Ok back to my original point, no neck warmers or mittens. Now you may be wondering where the mittens and neck warmers went, because we had to have needed them before the middle of February, well to be honest I have no idea. I mean I have some theories, but nothing concrete. I believe in Andrew’s case he eats them. I mean every time I look at the kid he is chewing on some kind of fabric like a demented goat.  In fact we have a little rhyme at our house to remind him to stop doing it: “You’re not a goat, so don’t chew your coat.” As for Jaxson, I think he is selling them to get money to fund his evil plans to take over the world.

So yesterday I went out to buy some replacement winter gear, which you wouldn’t think would be such a difficult task in the middle of winter; however, I was sadly mistaken.  Every store I went into was completely devoid of all winter supplies. In fact in more than one store the associates were setting up displays of sandals, shorts and t-shirts. What the #%*$@! We are in the middle of one of the worst winters in a long time and they are setting up racks of summer clothing??? Are these people crazy? I mean in Wal-Mart they had an entire section filled with garden accessories, decorations and seeds for vegetable gardens. Hey Wal-Mart, FYI my garden is under 10 feet of snow! I am pretty sure gardening is NOT in any of my immediate plans.

Now for those of you who know me, I am not the shyest or quietist individual, so I asked one of the associates why they were doing this? With a look of embarrassment the person told me that this is how the retail industry operates. She said it had something to do with when they had to order stuff and when it had to be delivered. This does not make sense.  I mean I can order from almost any of these stores websites and get the stuff the next day, or within a week at the latest, so how can their stores not do the same. By the way these are rhetorical questions, I really do not care, so please do not try and interrupt my rant against the retail establishment.

After giving me this sad explanation about the inner workings of the retail industry the lady actually told me that the best time to buy winter clothing is in August. IN AUGUST!!!!! So if during the winter your kids grow out of their snowpants, loose their mittens or eat their hats, you are out of luck because the retail industry has deemed August the time when you should need to buy this stuff.

On a different note, if you guys likes this post please share it, like it or comment. :)

Prunes are powerful! (Use sparingly)

Most kids at one point or another get constipated. It is a stinky, painful fact of life. Constipation turns normally happy, fun loving kids into cranky, screaming, whiny, anal-retentive, poop-holders. When Andrew was about 6 months old he got really, really constipated. As a new mom I had no idea what to do to help the process along, so when a friend of mine suggested giving him some prunes, I was all over the idea. I just wanted my happy kid back. So I went to the store and purchased a jar of baby food prunes and the fun began……..

Once we got back home I set Andrew up in his baby-seat and with spoon in one hand and prunes in the other I was ready to get the poop a-flowing. However, being new to this whole situation I didn’t understand one really important fact: Prunes are powerful. I truly believe that they should come with a warning label for newbie parents who do not understand the pure poop ejecting power that is contained in a container of pureed prunes. In my extremely ignorant state I fed Andrew the ENTIRE jar of prunes!!! 

Once I was finished feeding Andrew his prunes I put him in his exerscausor and waited for the prunes to do their job. A couple of minutes later my Mom called on the phone wanting to chit chat. She asked how everything was going and I told her about Andrew’s little problem and that I had given him a jar of prunes. At this point she told me in a VERY panicked voice to go and get some plastic and put it under Andrew because things were about to get really messy. I laughed at her, because I thought she was just joking around………and then I looked over at Andrew………in his formerly cream coloured sleeper……which was no longer cream coloured!

THERE WAS SHIT EVERYWHERE!!!!!! There was so much poop it had filled up the entire sleeper and was squirting out the arms, neck and the little button holes. Every time Andrew jumped in his exerscausor it would squirt everywhere. Jump, squirt, jump, squirt, jump, squirt. There was poop all over Andrew, all over the floor, all over our fire place, EVERYWHERE!!!! I just stood there in shock, looking at my son in horror while great globs of feces sprayed out from my son like he was some kind of obscene poop sprinkler.

Now what I did next was probably one of the stupidest things I have ever done in my life and all I can say in my defense is that I was in poop induced shock. Instead of taking my feces coated child directly into the nearest bath tub and hosing him down, I took him into his room. His Room!!!! There I tried to take off his sleeper and onesie while cleaning him up with some wipes. Like that was going to help, I mean we were so far past wipes it was not even funny. All I managed to do was get crap everywhere! By the time I realized my horrendous, newbie mom mistake (because veteran moms know in case of poosplosion you immediately go to the closest hose and drain), there was poo everywhere! It was all over me, all over Andrew, all over the walls, all over the window, all over the change table and even all over the floor.

At this point my beautiful, wonderful, non-poop covered husband walked in from work. He calmly helped me clean up our child and then our poop covered house. I learned many important lessons that day:

1.     Prunes are powerful. Never give more than 1/3 of a jar to a child at a time.

2.    Poop happens, so does barf, snot, pee and other gross stuff so get used to it.

3.    If a child is covered in anything gross (poop, barf, etc.) take child immediately to the nearest hose and drain and clean up there. If it is summer time feel free to do this outside. (accept if you have a newborn, some people frown upon using a garden hose on infants)

4.    Exerscausers are excellent at getting kids to poop. Our kids pooped in theirs so often we called it the pooperscauser.