Good morning!

I’ve officially gotten through the first day of Paul being gone. Woohoo! One down, too many more to go! Naw, it’s not that bad. He rolled out of here early yesterday morning with his buddies, and guess what? He rode all the way to Sturgis! Now he’s like a real biker! Haha! I think his friends who came through here on their bikes all the way from freakin’ NORTH CAROLINA gave him so much grief about trailering his bike that he decided to just ride. I’ll bet he doesn’t do that on the way back, though! That’s a whole lot of time on a bike. He called me at 7:30 last night and they’d just rolled into town – about 12 hours from when they left here! I’ll have to ask him what took them so long.

Yesterday, the kids and I all went to Target, since Kayley had birthday money burning a hole in her pocket. She got a bunch of stuff for her Bratz dolls. Can I just say that I LOVE how she’s such a “young” 12-year-old? She can play with her dollies all she wants, thankyouverymuch. Some of her friends seem like they’re 14 already, with the attitude and the makeup and everything. There’s nothing kid-like about them anymore. I don’t mind hanging onto the young years for awhile longer. She’s got plenty of years ahead of her to roll her eyes and ignore me while hiding in her room, watching MTV and sneaking onto MySpace.

While we were at Target, I got the hairy eyeball from at least half a dozen women. I’m realizing that the Target we shop at has an interesting clientèle. It’s almost exclusively older women, like 40 and up, I’d say. NONE of them are with children, and many are professional looking. The women I see with children are almost always the type of moms who have those nifty shopping cart seat protector things to keep their kids away from germs, y’know? And they’re almost always first time moms, too – I so very rarely see anyone with more than one child, and they’re usually toddler-age. My point, is we stand the hell out. I’m fatter, more disheveled looking, with WAY more children than anybody in that whole store. I almost feel too WT to shop at Target! And every time any of my children are bickering with each other or crying because they want a toy or whatever, people just STARE at us, without even hiding their disgust. Bunch of child-hating old broads and know-it-all first time moms up in there, trying to stare me down! It almost always makes me laugh. It used to only happen when Pablo would be having a fit. Shoot, I’m USED to people staring at Pablo now, so that doesn’t usually annoy me anymore. I’ve accepted that he’s got that “invisible disability” thing going on – if he had cerebral palsy or Down’s, people wouldn’t roll their eyes as much, maybe. But when people glare at me because my 2-year-old is crying for a couple of minutes, I just have to roll my eyes! People! They’re small children. They haven’t figured out those helpful skills like impulse control. They have emotions, they get pissed off sometimes, and they’re going to let you know about it! I wonder if these older women have just, like, FORGOTTEN what it’s like to have small ones? I give a free-pass to the first-time moms on their high horses, saying, “I would NEVER let my kids ‘insert-inappropriate-behavior here’ in Target.” It’s so easy to be smug when you only have one kid, ESPECIALLY if you’re lucky enough to get a GOOD kid. Kayley was like that, so I remember being completely smug about how well behaved she was, too. Naturally, I chalked it up to my superior parenting skills, when it really just had to do with her mellow, laid back temperament.

Yesterday’s display of rolled eyes and tsk-tsks came while I was checking out. Nikki was upset because I took away the toy she and Lexi were fighting over, and she was WAILING. Huge tears and everything. Kayley was trying to get all her birthday money out of, like, half a dozen birthday cards while we were standing in line, and I said something about how much easier life would be for her if she’d do stuff like that AT HOME before we left the house and how she was going to lose her money if she didn’t stick it in her wallet like a normal person, instead of carrying it around inside birthday cards. The lady in front of us spun around and glared at me. I don’t know if it was just the last straw for her or what, first having to listen to Nikki crying for two minutes, and then hearing me make a suggestion to my 12-year-old, but she apparently had just had ENOUGH of standing near us in line for that brief moment of her life. She made that “Tsk!” sound and turned back to paying for her stuff. Ha!

So then after I paid for my stuff and was about to put my bags in the cart, Pablo took off into the restroom. I had to leave the other kids with Kayley and chase after him; luckily we were still right next to the register. So I’m standing there, holding open the restroom door, keeping one eye on Pablo and one eye on the cart with the kids and Kayley at the register – she was still paying for her Bratz dolls with her cold hard cash – and people were just, naturally, STARING at us! Sometimes it’s just a quick judgment call, you know? Should I grab Pablo and take him out of here, which will COMPLETELY set him off and make him start screaming, and which will call ten times more attention to us, or should I let him go pee? I chose to let him pee. So the people behind us in line had to wait for probably a good half a minute until I could get Kayley to run in there and corral him while I got our bags off the end of the register. I know that had to be devastating for them, based on the looks they were giving me.

I know that it helps tremendously that I am super nice to everyone, always have a smile on my face, (almost!) always keep my cool, and talk gently to the children. It calms THEM down, and hey, maybe it calms other people down, too. I like to THINK that by seeing me not losing my shit, it’s making them think, “Well, she’s doing the best she can.” So. With that in mind, it makes me wonder, how much worse would the staring and the comments be if I glared back at them the way they’re glaring at me? Would we have to throw down inside of Target, because of all the ANGER going on? I just want to put this out there. Many times I have heard people say things like, “Why doesn’t she DO something?” Here’s my question: what exactly would you like me to do? What does the situation call for, here? Should I smack them upside the head? Should I clamp my hands over their mouths and run out of the store, so your day doesn’t have to be affected by hearing a kid throw a fit for a second, while we’re walking past you? Should I just stay inside my house, never leaving, never taking my kids anywhere? What, EXACTLY, should I DO here? What MORE should I be doing, beyond correcting them, explaining why we do this or we don’t do that, redirecting them away from stuff they should avoid, and comforting them when they’re upset? Do I need to start comforting YOU now, too? This is five minutes of your life! Deal with it! They aren’t going home with YOU, so suck it up! You can get through this! You can get through walking past us in Target without throwing a fit of your own. They’re toddlers; they’re SUPPOSED to act like this. What’s your excuse?

I know you’ve read my tirades about being a public spectacle before. And most of that, well – it’s over now! I rarely have people coming up to me, going, “Wow! Are they twins? And these ones are too? You sure have your hands full!” Now people just seem to be shocked to the point of disgust that there are just SO MANY of them! And naturally, I’ve had to deal with educating the public about autism on many occasions. But to have people stare and get annoyed at my normal, non-special needs kids, who are just acting LIKE KIDS, really just sort of surprises me. So, all the other stuff isn’t enough, I get to deal with THIS too? Grrrreat!

ANYWAY. We got through Target. I bought some of those Kid Cuisine meals for all the kids, and we had those for dinner last night, so I could take a break from cooking. And the kids were SOOOO thrilled with these crappy little frozen meals, it was amazing! Mallory sat down and said, “Woooow, mom! Chiiiicken? And french fries? And corn and…PUDDING? With SPRINKLES? Thaaaaaaank you, mommy!” It was their first time getting little individual frozen meals like that, and they were so impressed! Ha! I almost wonder if that was one reason the lady in line was glaring at us, seeing the CRAP I was buying for the kids! I already did my grocery shopping for the week, so we were just picking up some fun stuff – the Kid Cuisines, a bag of Cheetos, a couple of Smart Ones meals for me, some frozen pizzas, ice cream…Ha! I’m SURE she was impressed with the quality nutrition there.

And then after our delightful microwaved dinner last night, the kids all made a craft – they took construction paper, colored it, and then stuck foam stickers all over it. I found little containers of foam stickers for $1 in Target’s DollarSpot yesterday. Cheap, quick fun! They loved it! We all played for awhile, read books, and watched the new Baby Einstein DVD we just bought about five times in a row. It’s all about shapes, which Pablo is really, REALLY into right now, so he LOVED it. First night without dad went just fine! The kids went down to bed and went right to sleep! So, today starts another day!

I’m excited about today. We’re supposed to go swimming with a friend and her kids, and it should be SO much fun! This friend of mine has a little girl just a little older than Mallory, and she’s Mallory’s first little girlfriend. She had her very first playdate over there, away from us, a month or so ago. And she loved it! She LOVES this girl, and wants to be JUST like her in every way. When she came home from her playdate, she told me she wanted to wear glasses too. Hehe! So cute.

Time to make breakfast! Yay! Have a super day.