The things I have done

Before I had kids, I had a list of things I would never do when I had children. Never. Ummmm....yeah....I was wrong.

One thing I found completely ridiculous was people driving their children around in the car just to get them to fall asleep. How dumb. If your kid can't sleep without requiring a trip around town, maybe they just don't need the sleep that much, I thought. (At that point, I thought parents wanted their children to sleep because the children needed it. Then I learned that you really want your children to sleep so you can sleep yourself!) Then, at 9 months old, my lovely son started not taking a morning nap. The books all said kids usually take 2 naps a day until they are 18 months old - I was supposed to have 9 more months!

He was, however, quite nicely lulled to sleep if in the car for about 10 minutes and was a dream to transfer from carseat to crib. And so I conveniently had "errands" to run every morning around 10 - was it my fault he fell asleep before we got to our destination and I just happened to turn around, go home, and slip him into his crib? I won't even tell you about the "scenic" routes I took to run my "errands." Let's just say I believe I have been on every street in the city of Muscatine.

I also was certain that my children would not even know what the inside of a McDonalds looked like until they were teenagers. I didn't like the place, why should they? And then a friend wanted to meet at one with a playplace for a playdate - and I was doomed.

My children (both of them - even the one who has only been home from China for 3 months) squeal with delight as I pull into a drive-thru. And if I decide we get to go in to eat? You would think I had just told them they could have ice cream for every meal and go to bed whenever they wanted. I do believe Sam has been to every McDs within 15 miles of our house (which is quite a few). Of course, I will blame some of this on his Grandmommie and Papa who fed his addiction while we were gone to get Sadie..... I just won't mention the fact I resorted to using getting nuggets and fries as a bribe to get him to use the bathroom yesterday. Or the fact that I seem to be addicted to their southern style chicken sandwich.

I was able to cross another item off my list today. When I was a teacher, I was oddly annoyed by kids having shoes that light up or have characters on them. Seriously people, these are shoes. Do we have to make every single item appealing to kids? Can't they just be happy with a plain old pair of shoes? (Maybe this stems back to my own childhood and only once even getting a pair of shoes in a girl color - I usually either got my older brother's or had to be able to pass them down to my younger brother - so I will admit that I may have some strange issues with shoes.)

Yet today, there I was, in the middle of Kohl's pleading with Sam to pick out a pair of shoes so we could get home and Sadie could take a nap. (See the first paragraph....parents needing children to sleep!) I started out with the plain colored ones, trying to make black and lime green as attactive as possible. He was not convinced. I then moved on to the ones with a basketball on the side. Not plain like I wanted, but no lights and no cartoon characters. Then he saw the Cars ones. Thankfully they did not fit, but he was still not satisfied with the balls. I tried to talk him into some police-car looking ones (yes, LOTS of lights, but no Diego or Thomas or whomever). No go. He saw the Spidermans and his eyes lit up. (I have no idea why he likes Spiderman - he has never even seen him anywhere other than on his underwear!) I was getting desparate. Sadie had managed to dislodge 3 boxes of shoes from the shelf and was having fun throwing them on the floor, we still had to go to the grocery store before heading home, and the Spideys were on sale: I caved. My son now a has a Spiderman on each foot and blinking lights on each heel (as well as each velcro strap - like the heel isn't enough?)

I can't wait to see what I do next.