Today Is Not Your Day

So my sophomore year of high school I had an English teacher who had a sign on his podium that read:

I can only please one person per day.
Today is not your day.
Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

This isn't the best context for the quote or quote for the story, but the last two lines keep running through my mind after today's grocery trip. 

Grocery shopping. You know, when I was single, it was fun - yummy stuff I get for myself that I get to enjoy. Wander through the isles, consider prices, go through check out, done. And then I got married and I was working 2-3 jobs totaling about 3,000 hrs/wk and only getting paid for 40 of them and grocery shopping was a stressful, calculator bringing, try to fit in everything I wanted to get to show my husband I could cook and everything fresh I wanted to eat into a $25/week for two people grocery budget. Race through grocery isles after a long day in the classroom, adding and multiplying numbers and balancing cost vs. convenience and taste. Then I had kids. Husband's line of work makes more than a middle school English teacher so we get a little more leeway in the budget...$50 for three people instead of $25 for two (including diapers and formula!). However, we only have one car so grocery shopping becomes a whole new family outing because husband and I want to spend time together. I find that husband, with his years of experience in the grocery business in high school, is a valuable tool to have with me as well. Back to wandering through the isles of the grocery store, but with my trusty calculator and my posse of hubby and baby. Fast forward to another kid and a second family car and grocery shopping now resembles a circus act. You know how it looks. Forget that calculator. Take your eyes off that two year old for a second and you're paying for 5 smashed jars of pickles and every apple in the produce isle has a bite taken out of it.  You've been there or seen people who are there or you're laughing because it happened to you earlier this week. 

Well, as far as grocery shopping goes, the shopping part was super easy today. I had my list, I've familiarized myself with the locations of stuff well enough that I have the most efficient road mapped out through the departments. Kids are fed enough that they can refrain from eating everything I put in the cart until after we've paid. And it was fairly easy. They obeyed and were patient. And then we get to checkout. Super long lines today - it's Monday, so it's often much more busy than the middle of the week. I pick the shortest long line and settle in. Then I glance down and my one year old is covered in blood. What?! Now this is usually no biggy. Not sure where it came from...pretty sure it's his...normal occurrence when you have two boys under the age of 3 (or just two boys in general?). He's not crying...just smearing. His face. His hair. His arms and hands. Shirt. Cart. etc.. Here's the thing though...lately I've started going a little minimalist in the things I bring with me into the grocery store. Grocery list and pen. Debit card. License (just in case). Phone. Keys. All in pockets. No wallet. No diaper bag. Which, in this case equals nothing to clean said one year old of his blood (which I think originated from his mouth? fairly likely). Blessedly, kind granny on an oxygen tank in front of me overhears my exclamation of, "Taddo, you're covered in blood!" And donates her brand new pack of tissues to the cause. In the hussle and bussle of it all we arrive at the checkout stand and none of our stuff is on the conveyor belt yet. With the long line behind us, I employ Caden in the 'placing stuff on the conveyor belt' business and try to put Tadd back together to a point that people aren't grossed out and worried about all the blood born diseases (I know he's a baby, but still, people freak over blood these days. For good reason I guess.). In the midst of this Caden goes to put a jar of relish on the belt and the lid comes right off and the jar lands upside down in the corner of the cart. He'd thrown the jar out of the cart earlier in the trip and my deduction now is that although I was relieved at the time that the jar didn't break, the seal on the jar must have. Now we're covered in blood and relish. :) Cashier hands me a roll of paper towels, I fasten the jar and lid back together and send it on it's way down the conveyor belt and go about cleaning up our bloody, pickle-y mess, and the couple behind me pitch in to relieve my basket of its burdens. After bagging up all my groceries (we were at WINCO so do it yourself) we escaped, but just barely, and loaded ourselves up into our getaway car. No fits!No screaming! A successful grocery experience. 

Which brings me to my quote. I kept thinking, "Some people don't have to prepare all day to go to the grocery store. They decide to go, plan out what they need, go put it in their cart, pay for it, and go home. I used to be like that. I will be again too - someday. But "Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either."'

Even In Australia

So Caden's been on one lately and despite all my need to catch up, I figure I at least need to record his adventures as of late:
Last week I was getting ready to go visiting teaching for the first time in our new area...new companion I'd never met, new people I'd never met - kind of nervous just because you never know how it's going to go down. As I'm preparing the lesson and trying to get into some semblance of being ready for the day Caden had adventures of his own. First, he stuck wooden skewers in the media jacks of the computer and then broke them off so the skewer tips remained in the jacks. Then, while I'm using tweezers to try to pull those out, he found the Desitin and smeared it all over his face...to help his sunburn. I cleaned him up and while I was wiping it out of the carpet, he got into my foundation and painted his face and Tadd's feet so they could be 'beautiful like Mommy'. All by 10am. Then, upon returning home he decided to stick his Lightning McQueen up the tailpipe of our car so far none of us could reach it. (After many attempts and a call to my father for ideas, we were able to get him out with a coat hanger.)
Then today, he gets a hold of Michael's work cell. I tell him to go put it back and then I go off to start the washing machine. Little did I know that he put it in the basket I was about to dump in the washer... So this afternoon I find a phone at the bottom of the washer. Dang. While I'm fiddling with it to see if it's completely ruined or not, Caden gets a hold of our camera and breaks the lens. While I am now messing with the camera and the phone he comes down the stairs with Michael's brand new TI-89! Luckily that one escaped 'the wrath of the curious Caden'. It kind of reminded me of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".
'Mom said some days were like this...even in Australia.'