Friday, June 19, 2009

How YOU doin'?





Thank you, Lindy, for the awesome shades! :)

Thank you for shopping at Meijer. Now kindly leave.

So, I took Bobby grocery shopping yesterday. He had been changed and fed immediately before leaving for Meijer, so I was fairly confident he would be a happy baby during our trip. He was, for the most part. Of course, I didn't realize it would take us well over an hour-and-a-half to negotiate the aisles. It was re-stocking day, and most aisles had at least one huge cart, toting boxes of products being stocked on the shelves. These obstacles, paired with the usual early-morning clientele made it increasingly difficult to get by -- which meant we had to do a great amount of backtracking and taking the long way around things.

I chose this particular day to not only do a "self-check out," but also remembered to bring all my eco-friendly bags in which to lug our food home. By the time we made it to the front of the store, Bobby was sleeping peacefully in his carseat. Then we got behind an Amish woman, who (apparently) decided today would be a good day to learn all about the fancy check-out machines at Meijer. I waited as long as I could, but when it was clear the mini TV-screen and buttons that make a "BOOP" noise were too much for her, we switched lanes. About eight items into my own checkout process, Sweet Bobby woke up. Mad.
He proceeded to cry and carry on for the entire time I was trying to scan items. And because I had no one co-shopping with me, the items kept getting backed up on the conveyor, and the machine kept telling me to "unblock items from the conveyor" before letting me scan another item. Bobby worked himself into a frenzy, making the grandmotherly women in line behind me come up and immediately start trying to console him. And touching him. With all due respect, and as nicely as I could, I "thanks, but no thanks-ed" her. I certainly didn't mean to offend her in any way, but I'm not all about strangers touching the baby. And WTH were she and her husband doing waiting in line behind a woman with a screaming baby, clearly grocery shopping by herself? Did they NOT see the mountain of groceries? Did they NOT realize that once I scanned every last item, I still had to bag everything? All the while attending to the screaming baby strapped to my cart? Seriously?! And do you see the little blob hanging from his upper lip? Yeah,... that's a tear. As in he was having a "tears-streaming-down-his-angry-little-face" meltdown. Good times.

By the time everything was scanned and I was bagging, I was having one of those "frantic/calm" moments. You know, where you may appear calm and collected on the outside, but in your head, all you hear is the baby screaming, your heart pounding and your own voice screaming, HURRY! while breaking into a sweat. At some point, I clearly remember just pitching groceries back into the cart — bag or no bag. I'm sure this was all highly amusing to the folks waiting to have their portrait taken at the Meijer Photo Studio.

This is Bobby when we got outside.
And a short time later, this is him as I was loading the van.



And this is what the back of the van looked like after I began, once again, frantically chucking in food and supplies.

I think I distinctly heard the Greeter mumble something about "have a nice day," as we left the store. Which we did, once we got home. Bobby: 1, Mommy: 0

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Words to live by

I found a particularly noteworthy quote online today:

"You are always going to face criticism, you are always going to face challenges; but those things are there to make you stronger and more committed to what God gives you."

Personally, I can relate to these words. And I can attest to the fact that criticism and challenges can, indeed, make you stronger. Facing criticism and overcoming challenges makes you dig that much deeper into yourself, reaching depths of your soul you didn't even know you had. What you find there makes you believe in yourself more than ever, and you do so with ridiculous intensity. Then, you are able to stand a little taller, hold your head a little higher, and dig your heels in a little harder to stand your ground.

God gives us so much -- from gifts, skills and talents to the people who come in and out of our lives. When you commit to the gifts you have been given, you find your passion in life and work ceases to be work; it becomes joy. And when you commit to the people in your life, you will also find passion and joy... like you have never found before.