Weekend Melee

Well, the babysitter was sick on Friday, so I stayed home with Sophie and Eli. This was Steve's long weekend and he worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and JC Penney to return some sheets and stopped by my office so I could put some contacts into our computer system. What I had hoped would be a quick stop at the office turned into an over an hour episode of me sitting at my desk for a second, then running after Eli because he liked to roam around. Thank God for my co-workers. They were more than happy to chase Eli around and get Sophie numerous glasses of water. I then made the colossal mistake of going to McDonalds. With a Playplace. At noon, when thousands of others are eating lunch. By myself. With a 3 yr. old and a 1 yr. old. By myself. Did I mention that? It went something like this: I parked a mile away since that's where the closest parking spot was. I had the diaper bag on my shoulder, Eli on my hip, and I was dragging Sophie across the parking lot. We stood in line for 4 days. While standing in line, I had to wrestle Eli with one arm to keep him from jumping out of my arms and bolting over to the Playplace, and keep Sophie pinned against my leg with the other arm to also keep her from bolting. We finally got our food and looked for a place to sit. Of course, Princess Sophie demanded we sit in the Playplace area. Now before we got there, she kept complaining about how hungry she was, but now she was magically not hungry and just wanted to play. I told her she had to eat 2 McNuggets before she could play, and you would've thought I ripped her arm off and beat her with it. Eli, on the other hand, was eating EVERYTHING. He put every piece of McNugget in his mouth at once. Without swallowing. I'm not kidding, when we got home hours later, he still had food in his mouth, and that was AFTER I had already crammed my finger in his mouth and scooped out half of his food. Anyway, Sophie angrily and loudly finished her food and was gone. She stayed in the top of the Playplace on purpose so I couldn't get to her. Eli does whatever Sophie does, so he was screaming and crying because he wanted to play too. I broke down and ripped her a new one to get her down when it was time to go and so now I'm pretty sure I won't be nominated for mother of the year. I managed the intricate juggling act of carrying everything while throwing my tray away. We used the family restroom so I could change Eli and Sophie could go potty. While Sophie was going potty, Eli was trying to crawl under the sink to play with the plunger. I vomited in my mouth and drug him out of there. Once Sophie was done and I was holding her up so I could wash her hands, Eli thought it would be fun to splash his hands in the toilet. I'm pretty sure Sophie fell on the floor due to me dropping her so I could lunge after Eli. I doused his hands in hand sanitizer (and made sure he didn't lick his hands and lapse into an alcohol-induced coma) and we high-tailed it out of there.

You would have thought that after our outing on Friday that I would have not gone to Wal-Mart on Saturday. You would be incorrect. Sophie was mad because I wouldn't let her walk and she kept complaining that she was smashed with all the groceries. Eli, in true daredevil form, kept standing up in his seat and tried to reach for anything he could get his hands on. At one point, I noticed we had a lot of boys socks in the cart and I know Sophie and I didn't put them in there. Eli got mad when I made him sit down and wouldn't let him hold any more groceries due to him launching them and hitting people with them. He screamed and cried and everyone in Wal-Mart gave me the disdainful look. Since I already blew my chances for mother of the year on Friday, I really didn't care about the looks I was getting. I happened to look down and see how Sophie was doing, only to about die because she was holding the grapes bag and EATING THEM!! I gave a little quick lesson on paying for things before you consume them, but I really don't think she cared. She was just pissed because I took the bag away from her. So now both of my children are screaming, and we still had to wait in line to pay. AWESOME. Sophie actually stopped crying long enough to help me put items on the checkout lane. She loves that. We made it home without incident.

Today we went NOWHERE. It was fabulous. Sophie absolutely made my day today when we were in her room playing. Out of the blue, she looked at me and said, "Mommy, I just love playing with you." She could have murdered someone this weekend and her statement would have redeemed her.

Steve's on duty tomorrow while I get to go back to work and be around adults.


Eli demonstrating how to take his breathing treatment. The poor little guy is still taking them 4 times a day.


Sophie with her DeeDee Doodle guitar


They look so sweet and innocent