I Quit

I surrender. As of today, the children have defeated me. My only hope is that tomorrow is another day. You ever see those mommies out there who make everything look easy and fun? Well, I am not one of those mamas. And frankly, those mamas don't have my children. If they did, they would not be out in public with nicely done hair and makeup wearing cute little outfits with no wrinkles or stains on them. They would not be singing songs they made up to their children while laughing and smiling the whole time either.

I love my kids. I don't want anyone else's children. But sometimes, some days, they win. Like today, for example. Every morning I load both kids into our mammoth jogging stroller, provide each one of them with a separate snack (because they CANNOT share anymore), grab the mammoth sized dog and we go for a walk. This morning I think it took me 45 minutes to get them out the door and into the stroller. Emma did not want me to change her diaper. That probably took a good ten minutes. She's incredibly fast and wily. Then, she did not want to get dressed. That took another ten minutes. Usually I'm in a full body sweat by the time I get Emma changed in the morning. I finally got her ready to go and then I looked at Jake who was dressed but shoeless. I told him to go find his shoes so we could go. He said "okay Mama!" Five minutes later I found him in his room playing with his toys. I reminded him that he was supposed to be looking for his shoes. He said, "oh, okay Mama!" He walked out of his room, into the living room and found Mr. Crab sitting on the couch. After a heart wrenching reunion where he proclaimed his love for Crabby over and over again I gently reminded him to look for his shoes already. By this time I had found one of the shoes so we just needed one more. Five minutes later, Jake comes running over to me saying "I FOUND IT MOMMY!" I said, "no, Jake. That's Shamu. You're looking for a shoe." Finally, we had everyone ready and headed out for the walk. Just in time for the rain to start. I thought about turning around and going back into the house. And then I thought it just took forever to get out here so we are walking no matter what! And we did.

Later, we needed to go to Target because Emma was almost out of diapers. I started trying to get them out the door at 10:35am. We actually made it into the car at 11:18. Seriously. Once again, Emma did not want her diaper changed. She does this little game I like to call 'Limp as a Noodle, Stiff as a Board.' If you try to pick her up to take her somewhere against her will she will arch her back, throw back her head and kick you as hard as she can. Then, when you get her in check and start to pull her up to your own body she goes completely limp which causes you to almost drop her on the ground. Sometimes she goes limp first. Sometimes she's stiff first. She likes to mix it up just to keep you on your toes. This is especially fun when you're trying to get her in her car seat.

I finally got her ready to go when I looked over and saw Jake making this awful face. I asked him what was up and he said "P-U, I pooped!" That was an understatement. Remember he's in underwear now too. Needless to say, that pair of underwear had to be destroyed. By the time we rolled down the driveway I realized it was almost their lunch time. We had a little impromptu lunch at Chick Fil A before going to Target.

Jake spent most of lunch underneath the table doing who knows what. When he wasn't under the table he was turning around bothering the people in the booth behind us so I actually preferred him to be under the table. Emma was good until her nuggets were gone and then she decided to flip out and dip her plastic cow toy she got in ketchup and hurl it across the restaurant. I will forever be haunted by images of red ketchup flying through the air. When lunch was over, I rewarded their behavior by letting them play at the play scape. Ten minutes later I told them it was time to leave to go to Target. Jake complied. Emma did not. She took off up to the top of the play scape and sat down. I said "Emma! It's time to go now. Come down." She said "Nuh-uh." We did that for about five minutes with the other two moms in there kind of laughing about the whole thing. I eventually had to climb up to the top of the play scape and haul her down.

On the way to Target I had to have a little prayer time. And the Lord blessed me. The children were pretty good through Target and Emma is now taking a nap. Jake has come out of his room twice so far but I'm still hopeful that he will nap too. Just in case, I have made a small white flag out of one of Mike's t-shirts that I plan on hanging outside our bedroom door to let them know that they win.

***UPDATE***

This actually all took place yesterday. I just didn't want to post it on Wordless Wednesday because it had so many words. As of today, Little Mama is back in charge.