The Ice Box

Yesterday the kids and I went to Kroger to pick up a few things for dinner with our neighbors last night. I have been venturing out to the grocery store with all four in tow and most times it is a bit frustrating, but always a great accomplishment. Yesterday we made it through Kroger and I was checking out with a sigh of relief and a feeling of achievement. There was only one licked apple a bunch of grapes misplaced and many things touched...so needless to say a very successful grocery trip...no major meltdowns, no broken things, not lost children. As I was checking out I heard someone behind me say "Whose kids are those!" This is not something you like to hear when you have four curious, energy filled children 4yrs old and under with you in a grocery store. So my first thought is it better not be my children, or else... and I look and see Finn starting to get a bit fussy in the buggy and Gavin still sitting in the front seat of the cart, but Annaliese and Tristan were not in site so I turn to see my two lovely darlings sitting inside the ice machines munching on some ice and laughing. Yes it was my children and the humility that had to follow the comment of "Whose kids are those, and my reply had to be they are mine! Oh the rage, the frustration the embarrassment! Immediately I draw from my emotions and and my reactions to these events are as if the kids are doing to me and on purpose. It is a very self centered way of receiving their behavior, but I think most of us do it and that is why our emotions rise up and control our actions at this point. It is a great teaching moment for proper behavior in a grocery store...who would have thought you would have to teach your children not to sit in an ice machine and eat ice! Anyways putting aside my ego and not caring about what others think of me...because it totally doesn't matter and making it a teaching moment meant removing my emotions from the situation and taking care of it right then and there. So instead of letting every emotion guide my decisions and actions and pulling them by their hair to the car Tristan and Annaliese where given a certain amount of time off of bedtime, which is a major deal at our house because we have game nights, movie nights, reading night etc...so they will miss out on some activity and hear us as we are doing the activity. Both of them realized they had done something wrong and we proceeded to our car. Everyday is filled with a certain amount of chaos and some more than others.

One other funny story from yesterday and then I have to go and do my house work! Ava was over yesterday and they were upstairs playing. Katherine and I were talking when we heard Ava kind of whimpering/crying and she comes down the stairs with shaving cream all over her head . Gavin had gotten the shaving cream out and sprayed it on Ava!