A Saturday in the Life

I've tried to not write many articles that are just a running journal of the happenings in my life. I mean, after all, what is this a log of things on the web? Er, wait, don't answer that. Anyway, I usually will use something that happened during my day/week as a jumping-off point for a rant on society, life, cheese, etc. However, I had an interesting Saturday, so I thought I'd relate it to you.

My day started off with a bang, or more appropriately, a cry. The youngest of my three children, Squeaker, decided that 6:30 was a fantastic time for the entire family to wake up. Anne and I have a tendency to disagree with that assessment, but the older children concurred and since they had a majority (and the volume to back it up), we all awoke. This was followed by the normal activities of getting juice for the older children, eating breakfast, taking showers, getting dressed, and so on.

All of this is slowed by the fact that my second child, Doodle, has begun demanding to do everything on his own. He's two now, so he's a big boy and should be allowed to handle everything on his own. At least, that's what he thinks. He can be very particular about it however. He gets quite upset if we do something for him that he's identified as one of his tasks to complete. For instance, he wanted his stuffed monkey, cleverly-named Monkey. It was sitting on the floor next to me, so I picked it up to hand it to him. That was not sufficient for Mr. Self-Sufficient, however. He took Monkey from my hands, placed it back where it was on the floor, then picked it up himself. This had been going on for a few days, so we thought we had grown smart. When he wanted his juice, Anne picked it up and began to hand it to him. This set off another round of "no, me pick up juice!", so Anne set it down where it was. Again, we thought that we had grown smart, but we still had a lot to learn. You see, Doodle had decided it was also his task to put the juice back where it was. Therefore, he picked up the juice cup, handed it to Anne, took the juice cup from her, placed it back where it was to begin the merry-go-round, and finally picked it up himself. We have since decided to become psychic so we know what we're "allowed" to do for him.

We decided that we couldn't decide what to make for supper, so instead we went to a local Mexican restaurant. The menu is limited, but the food is good and quick and we can find something that the kids want to eat. If was only cheaper, it'd be the perfect eating establishment. We go through the line, order our food, watch it prepared before our very eyes (well, my eyes, Anne and the kids were already sitting) and get to the cash register to pay. I pat my breast pocket where I always keep my wallet and my hand meets no padding as it hits my chest. There's no wallet in my pocket. I had done the checkbook earlier in the day and had neglected to replace the wallet in my coat. I turn to Anne and ask her if she brought her wallet. No joy. So, then I have to explain to the under-paid and over-worked restaurant employee that the idiot customer has forgotten his wallet. They were nice enough to allow Anne and the kids to eat while the fore-mentioned idiot customer runs home as quickly as he can after wolfing down his (large) burrito to retrieve his wallet. They knew that I wasn't just skipping out on the check, however, since Anne and the kids were left there and they were probably quite certain that the kids weren't going to be able to wash the dishes. Mop the floors, maybe, but they most likely wouldn't do a very good job. Idiot customer returns triumphantly (read: meekly), however, and pays for the food. Crisis averted and they can stop making wanted posters with my face on them. On to the grocery store.

The grocery store is another aspect of life that becomes exponentially more difficult with three children since there aren't many carts made to hold all three and, if left to their own devices without being tied down my a retraining system, the older kids will wander the isles, greeting fellow patrons and asking people why they decided to go with skim instead of 1%. Our kids are very taste-oriented. Normally, I will go to the grocery store with one or both of the older children and leave Anne and the baby, Squeaker, home to rest a bit. This day, however, the whole crew made the trip. The trip itself went by uneventfully, however getting groceries put away is an adventure of its own. The older kids will fight over who gets to put what away and where it should actually go. At one point, Doodle ran away with a container of chili powder because it was his duty to place that container in it's proper place. Somehow, the proper place in the mind of this toddler was the living room. Since it was then in the proper place, he saw no reason for the chili powder to be constrained my such a restrictive container any further. Doodle opened the chili powder. I don't know exactly how. I don't know why. I don't know that I want to know. However, he was somehow able to get the plastic wrapper off, the cover off and the shaker cover off and get chili powder on the carpet and the blanket that we keep in the living room.

Just another Saturday in the life of the Kamp family. *Sigh* I'll get the vacuum.