A Little Bit of Alone Time

I think most moms are just like me when they sit down and think about all the things they need to accomplish in a day and think, "How many of these things can I do this evening after the husband gets home?" My husbands schedule doesn't allow me enough time to even consider doing the things that I need to do after he gets home from work.

So I've had to come up with "creative" ways to keep the kids under control while we're out and about doing the things we need to do. At the grocery store I always used to put my boys in those little truck carts that have two steering wheels. But it always seemed like they wanted to other steering wheel. So they spent most of the time screaming at each other, and I spent most of the time poking them and telling them to leave each other alone.

My solution to this problem was to get a regular cart and put my 2 year old in the seat, and let my 4 year old walk along beside me. It sure kept them from fighting with each other, but created a whole new problem. Jax was now free to grab everything within his reach and take his sweet time. My solution to this problem was to walk to the isle with the fruit snacks as soon as we walked into the grocery store and let him pick out his Transformers fruit snacks. (Payt also gets Mickey Mouse snacks) Jax gets to hold onto his treats the whole time we're in the store. The deal is that if he doesn't whine, complain or ask me for anything else he gets to take his treats home with him.

Some people might criticise me and say, "you shouldn't have to bribe your kids to get them to behave!!" I say, "I'm not bribing him. I'm simply giving him incentive to be the good boy that he is and not run around like a crazy man." That seems like the more logical thing to do as opposed to the alternative, which is each one of us getting frustrated with the other.

Today Jax had pre-school. They also have an hourly care program there so I decided that I would give myself a break and put Payt in hourly while I did my running around. The first 30 minutes or so were glorious. I was walking around Target taking my time and enjoying the silence. But then a funny thing happened. It was too silent. I didn't have Jax asking me questions. I didn't have Payt asking me for chocolate. I had no one to talk to. No one making me laugh. No one screaming at me telling me that they wanted to go home.

I'm pretty used to having Jax gone to school. He's been going to pre-school for a year (two days a week) and it's a little bit easier to let him go. But I've never really been away from Payt. I missed him so much that I went to pick him up early.

I guess when it comes down to it, running errands with two wild-men isn't so bad at all.