Happy Valentine's Day !!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all family, friends, and readers of this blog. Today is also myself and John's 5 year wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, John had to work during both the day and night. He did manage to get home for a couple of hours though to spend some time with us. We are still as much in love, and maybe even more, as the day we were married. I am a very lucky woman to have such a wonderful man as my husband and the father of my children. Even though we could not have dinner together, I cooked John a special meal to take back to work with him. Natalie got her first valentine, from Daddy of course !!! She really seemed to like the pink rose and card that he got her. She thought the card was especially delicious !!! Ryan was thrilled with his Backyardigans Valentine's Day card, monkey stickers, and Hershey's kisses from Mommy.

She did it !!!

I've only been giving Nattie the fruit puffs for a couple of days, but she already manages to pick them up and even gets a few in her mouth here and there. We are working on a sippy cup also and she seems real receptive to it. These are very encouraging signs to us. At this age Ryan had no interest in either. Even at 12 months old, he would not drink from a sippy cup or self feed. John and I are really excited to see her touching & exploring things, eating puffs, and drinking from the sippy cup (with assistance). It made our day !!!

Ryan the swiper

This morning, I was making Natalie her breakfast. Ryan had already had his and was playing in the living room. I put some fruit puffs on Nattie's high chair tray for her to try and pick up and eat. Then, I turned around and started to make her cereal and fruit. When I turned around to see how she was doing, the puffs were gone. I figured she had knocked them onto the floor, so I started to look around for them, with no success. I went back to making her breakfast, thinking I'd find them after feeding her, and put some more puffs on her tray. When I finished making her food and turned around to feed her, this is what I saw:

Ryan was like Swiper the fox on Dora the Explorer. He was so quiet about it too !!! I didn't even realize he was there. Ryan has not been interested in the fruit puffs for awhile, but now that his sister is starting to eat them, he also must have them. When Ryan realized that I had the camera and was snapping pictures, this was his reaction:

Too cute, I'm tellin' ya.

Shopping Trip

I recently went on a shopping trip to pick up some things for the kids. Normally, I love going out shopping for them, but on this particular day, something I witnessed while in the store left me with a really sick feeling in my stomach.

There was a mother with her 3 children that passed me in the store and wound up the next aisle over from me. I guess the children were about 5 or 6, 7 or 8, and 9 or 10. The oldest one was a girl and the 2 younger ones were boys. This woman was screaming at her children, especially the youngest boy. Now, I fully realize that being a parent can be very frustrating sometimes. There have been times when feeling like I was at "the end of my rope" in a situation, I have had to walk away and cool off for a few moments. I have had moments of total exasperation that I have begged and pleaded with my children, almost to the point of tears, to just "please cooperate with Mommy." Come on now, I mean... what parent has not felt like this at one point or another (I'm just talking about the walking away & cooling off and the begging & pleading).

This woman was just plain mean and in my opinion, does not deserve to be a parent. She was calling her children stupid. Several times, she threatened that "someone was going to call the police on them". She repeatedly told them to shut up. She was swearing at them. I could not believe what I was hearing. When I walked past the aisle they were down, she grabbed the youngest boy by the collar of his jacket and began to drag him down the aisle. The little boy was crying and was looking at me as I passed. I just wanted to scoop him up and hold him, hug him, and tell him that everything was going to be alright.

I'm not sure that words can adequately describe how I felt that day. Now mind you, I was not the only one who was appalled by this woman's behavior. Several other shoppers had looks of disgust on their faces. A couple of women shook their heads. One woman looked at me and said "I can't believe that." I was so bothered by what I heard and saw that I spoke to the store manager. His response was not what I expected it would be. He told me that "we don't like to get involved in people's parenting styles." You have got to be kidding me !!! This woman's behavior was at the least, disruptive and upsetting to not only myself, but also other customers. To me, her behavior was borderline abusive if not more. I was so upset when I got in my car, I called my husband and cried. When I got home, we discussed the situation further and John suggested that I should have called the police of the city I was in while shopping. If I ever find myself in a situation like this again, and I hope to god that I don't, that is exactly what I will do. Never again will I go to the store manager.

I've been thinking about this incident and wonder if there is more that I could have done. Should I have tried to talk to the woman ? Should I have tried to console the little boy ? Should I have called the police ? Am I wrong for thinking what happened was horrible ? Any thoughts, input, or comments that anyone has would be very appreciated.