Shopping With a Toddler, the Answers to the Questions You've Been Asking

I just realized that my blog has had over 10,000 views.  That blows my mind.  I wanted a blog for a long time, but I just never followed through with it.  This one has been good for me.  I like sharing my life with people.  I like the exercise of deciphering what is appropriate to share and what is not.  I like writing.  

So thank you, thank you, thank you for reading it.  I am so honored. 

Evelyn is basically not a baby anymore.  She took off after a little girl with light up shoes at Target the other day and I almost lost her.  I mean, I think she was running faster than I can.  I'm beginning to understand other parents better.  It's not that I was ever the person glaring and saying, "control your kids" in public.  I've always thought parenting is an artform and I still do, but now I am beginning to understand things more clearly.  For example, questions I didn't understand before, but know the answers to now (for now...I think they change weekly): 

Q:  Why don't you just put your toddler in the seat on the cart and buckle her in?  Then you won't have to chase her?

A:  She will flip the %&@*! out. 

Q:  Why did you open that box of goldfish crackers before you paid for it?

A:  At the mere sight of cardboard packaging (food or not), my bottomless pit will say "MUM MUM MUM MUM MUM MUM" until I feed her.  So I chose to feed her now.  

Q:  Why is your child screaming?

A1: Because I didn't open the box of goldfish crackers.  

A2: Because I made her sit in the cart.  

A3: Because I won't let her have the motion-sensor fluffy, meowing cat that they had to put on the stupid end-cap instead of hidden down the toy aisle, where we do not go.  

A4: Because I didn't let her chase that little girl's light-up shoes. 

Q: Why is your child crying on the floor?  Pick her up!

A: If I pick her up, she will cry harder.  She will also punch and kick me until I put her back down.  Therefore, I will wait 10 seconds for her mood to swing back to normal, because a toddler's mood lasts exactly 10 seconds before resetting to better, worse, the same, frantic, silly, or asleep.  At that point, I will evaluate whether we should leave or stay.  

Q:  If it's so hard to shop with her, why didn't you leave her at home?

A:  You're right.  I will just stop shopping.  The only place I will go is to work.  Then when my child is 14, I will allow her to go to Target.  We will all be perfectly well-adjusted.    

Q:  Why didn't you change her before you left the house so you didn't have to change her on the changing table in the bathroom?

A:  I did.  And then she pooped. 

Q:  Why didn't you feed her before you left the house so you didn't have to feed her when she saw the cardboard box that resembled food packaging?

A:  I did.  She is bottomless. 

Q: (asked by the cashier)  Oh, she is so sweet, does she want a sticker? *hands baby a sticker without waiting for reply*

A1: She does want that sticker.  She wants it in her mouth.  She wants it to go through her digestive tract.   

A2: She does want that sticker.  She will accidentally wad it up and get it stuck to the bottom of her shoe.  Then she will cry hysterically until you give her another sticker.  By that time we will be miles away from another sticker.  Halfway through the 25 minute commute from our house to Target.  

Anyone else have any to add? 

Lately...

First let me say that we love our house, we love our church, and we love Wisconsin.

 People have been so kind to us.  We will be walking down the street and someone will stop us and say, "I haven't met you yet!"  The other day, actually, we went to this little diner called Christina's just to have a simple cup of coffee, and afterwards someone stopped us and said, "Welcome to Ripon!  Did you know there are other coffee shops in town?"  

And then for the house-- having space is AMAZING.  I can't even say that enough.  I used to have this recurring dream that I would open a door and discover a new room in our apartment that I didn't know about.  Now, it's like that's come true.  There are TWO rooms that we're not even really using right now (a spare bedroom and an office) that I forget about all the time.  And then I'm like, "hmm where can I put this random object that I don't want in the middle of my living room?  Ah hah!  In the office!"  It's great.  

But really, on the downside, we just don't have enough furniture to fill the rooms.  I'd love to use the office for sewing and to keep the computer in, but we need more furniture and that's expensive.  Also, we hope to have the spare room up and running by October when my mom and Grandma do the Great Gramma Tour to visit Allen and Charis, us, and my Uncle Bob and Aunt Vickie.  This morning we went to a bunch of antique stores looking for some furniture and we found six chairs for our dining room table (we'll probably only use 4 in there and then put the other two somewhere else).  They need some work, but they work just fine for now!

There are two with arms and four without.  

We also found this little model church at the antique store.
I kind of want Evelyn to have a  Dollchurch instead of a Dollhouse.
But really...I'm kidding.  I'm a good mom.  

The real church is...overwhelming to say the least, but I really do feel like I'm handling it well.  Nobody expects me to figure everything out right away, and I just have to remind myself that over and over again (like by writing it in my blog).  My main goals for the first year or so is to just listen to the congregation and to preach well.  I'll be doing other things, like leading the Confirmation and beginning a Bible study with an afternoon session and an evening session, but I'm not going to overdo myself.  The Bible study will be based on the scripture for the coming Sunday, so in a way it will be killing two birds with one stone-- studying something with a group that I would be studying by myself anyway.  

I do have my office set up, but it's still a work in progress.  I'll post photos sometime next week.  

Not being home as often is weird for me.  Sometimes I will get to the end of the evening and realize I haven't changed a diaper all day.  That blows my mind.  And Evelyn is having a bit of a hard time with me being gone,  but mostly I think she just doesn't like change.  I think she's also mad because I decided that now that she's one, I'm not going out of my way to nurse her during the day.   She doesn't like that idea, and the days that I'm home she still nurses 4 or 5 times.  I just don't have the heart to tell her no.  Maic is doing a wonderful job staying home with her.  She's not a piece of cake anymore (she never was, but it's different now).  She's doing toddler-y things, like pulling all of the wipes out of the package, throwing herself on the ground and crying when she doesn't get what she wants, and sitting on Nos's head.  

Speaking of Nos, Evelyn thinks he is the cream of the crop.  She also thinks that she is Nos's sole caregiver and therefore believes that he doesn't eat unless she feeds him.  She has even-- I kid you not-- learned how to throw his toys for him.  She throws them like 8 inches.  Nos is the most poorly adjusted to Ripon of the four of us.  He's not doing great.  He barks while we are gone, and he had a really bad interaction with another dog.  We are really trying to get him onto a schedule and give him a lot of exercise, but of course it's difficult when we're all trying to figure out what "schedule" even means.  

Well, there's the novel on our lives.  We're doing great.  Sometime here in the future I'll be doing another blog overhaul, this time with a name change.  I'm still up in the air, trying to decide between a simple change like "Being Pastor Mom" or "Life as Pastor Mom" or if I want to do something more clever (I have zero clever ideas, however, so probably I won't do that.)  I'm up for suggestions all around-- from the title, to layout, to subject matter.  

Peace be with you all!

Becoming an Ecologically Conscious Shopper

The course that I took this semester, "Greening the Bible: An Ecological Reading of Scripture" has made me very aware that I want to have an Earth-Friendly lifestyle.*  I've always been fairly conscious of the impact I have on the environment, but the main thing that I never paid attention to before is the way that I shop. 

I have always been a clearance-queen.  30% off??? That's nothin'.  I'm a 75-90% off kinda person.  Well, since taking this class, I haven't been able to avoid thinking about what the profit margin looks like on something that is 75% off.  And if the profit margin is low, then the person making the product (yes, in fact, a real live human being made your clothes) is receiving very low wages, right?  Is it worth it to me to have a $5 pair of shoes if it means that somebody in China is making far less than $5 to make that pair of shoes?  I mean, let's be real-- they're probably making cents on that $5, even before it went on clearance in the first place.  

I could elaborate, and also talk about the pollution involved in the production of many of the products that I own, but for now, I'll leave it as a social justice issue about fair wages.  

We may not be rich, but our money is power.  The way we spend our money says something about what kind of world we want to have.  From now on, I'm going to be much more intentional about what I spend my money on.  I'm not gonna lie-- there will probably be an adorable skirt on sale at Target that I won't be able to pass up, and at our current income level, we're going to have to pick and choose a little, but as much as I can help it I'm switching to a second-hand, fair-trade, local-economy shopping style.  

I want to get this book: The Better World Shopping Guide, which gives a grade to each company, taking into account their business practices, etc.  Here is an example of the way the companies are rated, but in the book they are divided up into sub-categories that have more specific qualifications for the grades.  Guys, I'm sorry, Oreos get an F.  

I'm also going to purchase more of my products from Etsy, which is a community of independent artists, and my online August birthgroup, where a lot of the women are attempting to make enough money to stay at home with their little ones.

Most of all, I'm just going to try to purchase less.  Evelyn honestly has enough clothes to wear until she's 18 months.  Because I'm allowed to love dressing my little girl, I'm not going to stop buying for her entirely, but I am going to buy less and when I do, I'll buy second-hand or from an independent or local designer. 

So, does anyone have advice?  I need some.  

* Not seeing the connection to religion or scripture?  Check out The Green Bible.  But, simply put, when we don't take care of God's creation-- the people in it, in addition to plants, animals, air, water, etc.-- we aren't taking care of God.  Can you imagine someone treating your masterpiece the way we treat God's?  

P.S.  I've been really busy, so I'm sorry that I skipped Evelyn's 5 month update.  She is growing beautifully and doing the stuff 5-month-olds do, such as sticking her hands in her dad's mac-and-cheese, sitting up on her own, and drooling a lot.