Daring Young Mom

So, my throat is swollen, my ears are plugged and scratchy inside and I could easily win a green 11s contest with any two year old if I don’t carry around a box of tissues. I really wish I could call in sick today.

On top of that, I think Jack has an eating disorder. The fish food packet says he should eat 1-3 pellets 1-3 times each day. It says to feed him as much as he will eat and that he will let me know when he’s had enough. Well he eats more like 4-6 pellets 4-5 times a day. Then after engorging himself, he fatdogs it on the bottom of the bowl while he digests, every once in a while spitting back out one of the pellets and then eating it again when he has more room.

Laylee’s eating habits are growing strange as well. She has lately been using her baby doll’s binky and asking me to drink from a bottle. She never took a bottle as an infant. But now it appears I’m weaning her onto one at age 2 and a half. Weird, but not worth fighting about.

I’m sticking to toast, diet soda, herbal tea and the occasional caramel sundae from the evil House of MacD. If anyone has a suggestion to get rid of a raging-cold – that is safe for nursing moms – please let me know.

I just got my first Frugal Reader book in the mail. It’s Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I’m not sure I can read it during this first year of Big-O’s life, since I’m too anxious to watch the evening news or read half the content of Reader’s Digest. But, I’ve always wanted to read it and now (next year) I can. My favorite part of the Frugal Reader process was the envelope my book came in. There is something really appealing about having a great book sent to you for free from a stranger in Vermont, using an envelope that has been used to send great free books multiple times. It gives me a shiver, a good one.

I love grocery store checkers and I know they have a hard job. I once had that job and was always the slowest, most pathetic cashier in the store. I know this because they had a poster in the break room with everyone’s speed and accuracy ranking. My feet, legs, back, and arms ached by the end of the day and I hoped I was getting faster, but according to el sheeto del ranko, I was the lowest of the low and pretty much stayed there. I have a deep respect for those who can do it and do it well.

That said, I just about had a rumble with my local snooty grocery store checker this week (The store is snooty, not the checker. She is just very very confused). This is the store that I go to just to get the door-busters and then run screaming away from. This is the store with the $1.00/lb bananas (non-organic, mind you). Sadly this is by far the closest store to my home and it is beautiful and warm and fuzzy and sells a large selection of exotic plants and foods, beautiful baked goods and books for 25% off the publisher’s list price. I love this store, but oh how I hate it.

Last week they had Prego on sale — buy1 get 1 free. So the normal price ranges from $2.59-$2.79 per bottle. Ya still with me? I bought something like 20 bottles for my food storage because we go through the stuff like water. I also had a coupon for $1.00 off when you buy 2 bottles.

After ringing my order through, she attempted to scan my coupon but got an error message. From my experience as a checker and just a person who has been to a grocery store before, I know that coupons often don’t scan properly and need to be entered manually. She was not aware of this and handed the coupon back.

Checker: You can’t use this.
Me: You could probably just enter it manually.
Checker: It won’t go through.
Me: I know I bought at least three bottles. So, it should be valid.
Ch: Let me print the receipt and we’ll have a look. Okay, see, here’s why it won’t work. You’re trying to get more money using this coupon than you actually paid for the sauce.
Me: Waaaa…..?
Ch(sort of annoyed at my idiocy): Look, the original price for the sauce was $2.79/bottle. Then down here, your special value deal took off the discount of $2.59/bottle. So the Prego only cost you 20cents in the first place and you’re trying to get a dollar off on top of that.
Me: No, because they’re two for one. So the deductions are just the price of the free bottles being deducted. I still paid about $1.40 for each bottle.
Ch: You’re trying to make money off the deal. This doesn’t make any sense.
Me: No…..it sure doesn’t.

I then re-explain calmly how a 2-for-1 works and she somewhat frantically explains how I am trying to rip off the store and put them out of business for a measly dollar. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d just said, we don’t take coupons on sale items. I would have walked away. But the MATH…..I just can’t let it go. She looks at me like I’m the biggest moron/con-artist ever to live. How sick am I? Oh no, I must be avenged. I will not budge.

Ch: Your total is $47.69.
Me: What about the coupon?
Ch: We’ll get it figured out after you pay?
Me: After I pay?
Ch (looking at me like, “DUH”): Yes, ma’am.
Me: O….Kaaaayyyyyy

So I pay for the stuff and she calls her manager over. The checker explains how I am trying to rip off the store with my coupon scam.

Manager: That doesn’t make any sense.
Ch: I KNOW!

The manager rings the coupon through and hands me a dollar with a wide-eyed, why-me look on her face that says, “I am so, so deeply sorry.” Meanwhile the checker looks aghast that I am getting away with this fraud. I truly hope the manager will explain it all to her some time. I was too tired.

Two things happen to me when I go garage-saleing:

1. I become incredibly, perhaps ridiculously, cheap
During the last community garage sale I found several books I’d been wanting and one I had just purchased at Borders-Tantalizing-House-of-Rip-off Reading-Material for the outlandish sum of $13. It was a small paperback book and I got it for 50 cents at the garage sale. Ironically it still had a $13.00 Borders price tag on it and was in perfect condition. So I returned it to Borders for store credit. Normally I wouldn’t have the guts to do something like this but the deals I get at garage sales just turn me into a different person, a “those grapes rang up as 99 cents/lb but the sign clearly stated they were on sale for 98 cents/lb” kind of person. So, I used the store credit to buy 3 other sale books I’d wanted. Suh-weet.

Next I head to Costco. This month they have a ton of coupons for stuff I normally buy anyway, diapers, pull-ups, Clorox wipes, bags of chocolate bigger than my torso. Well after they rang through my $200 order, I noticed on the receipt that they had missed using my Huggies coupon for the pull-ups. It was a $3.00 savings — LOST! So, I went back, had them ring it back through and they handed me three big ones. Nice!

Parenting Magazine is somewhat of a joy to me when I find time to read it so I decided to renew for another year. Two days later, I see a coupon for a free Looney Toons dish set when you subscribe to the magazine for the first time. I say, “Yo, what up, G? I’ve been a faithful subscriber to your publication for like 2 years. Where’s my free dish set — actual retail value ~50 cents?” So I call them and talk for 20 minutes to a couple of managers and supposedly there is now a note on my account somewhere that says someday someone will possibly send me something free…..maybe. Please do not calculate how much I value my time by figuring out how long I was on the phone with the muzak and what I got out of the bargain. Still, I felt empowered.

2. I feel an almost uncontrollable desire to go home and set alight 83% of my family’s personal effects. (Are they called “effects” if the people are still alive?) (Okay, maybe he’s not grateful for this one….but he should be. Our house and garage look so much nicer once they’ve been purged.)
Seeing all of those people getting rid of that stuff, I just think, “Wow, I have a lot of hud building up in my house!” So, I’ve been dejunking and throwing things away like it’s my job. I’m sure you’ve already stopped reading at this point. So I’ll stop writing. More on this fascinating topic another time.

Well, Blackbird, here’s my offering for show and tell – kitchen item I can not live without:

Until I discovered this little baby, I refused to eat or feed my kids apples on any kind of regular basis. I stuck to more ready-made fruits like bananas, grapes and oranges. I hate coring and slicing apples. Now this little $2 piece of heaven does it for me. Now we can all achieve optimum health.

I was greatly maddened today when my sister, in the throws of a hard mommy day, accused me of having a house that’s “always perfectly clean.” I like my house to be neat it’s true, but if I ever become one of “those people,” you have my permission to smash a large melon over my head and then wipe it all over my carpet. Then proceed to commit me to a mental institution because with 2 kids under the age of 3, are you kidding me? There is no real excuse for the state of my house today except – I’m having a great day. Today is a day of cuddling, napping, stories, playing and blogging. So here, for my sister’s enjoyment are the pictures I took while I was on the phone with her (btw, today was supposed be laundry day):

Sorry to my Mom, Dan, and anyone else who taught me better or gets to come home and live here later this evening. I may clean it all up one day but right now I’m playing with the kids. (Well, right now I’m posting embarrassing pictures of my house. Stop yelling at me!)