Today I woke up ready to tackle things. 

I love when I wake up like that cause it isn't as often these days. 

Honestly this last week has been very draining and discouraging. We just aren't seeing progress with our daughter's healing and these past few days were particularly bad. Her hiccups were relentless for days and her poor tummy was so tired. Is there anything worse than watching your kid suffer and being helpless to stop it. ARG!

But they went away praise God around midnight so this morning I wanted to finally refill our fridge (it was sadllllly empty haha, I caught my poor hubby trying to make a pb and j on a corn tortilla today!) Plus I thought it would be fun to Christmas shop at Walmart with the kiddos. I forgot Walmart and Fun hardly ever go together, right? Why is it! I always go in there all ready to conquer my list and almost always leave feeling frazzled. I think it's because I realize I forgot something but don't want to walk another mile across the store! 

But this morning I blasted the Christmas music with my kids and was ready! I even put my ugly tennis shoes on ---- not a window shopping trip !!!! 

Walmart went almost seamlessly, of course I forgot several things (why do I even make a list?!) but my kids were awesome rock stars! Since we were right next to Chick Fil A I figured we could grab lunch and I would let the kids run on the play structure. Of course functioning with Juliana's new food restrictions has really been challenging. I have to always have something with me she can have - which usually means I need to have made it from 10 different kinds of flours -- but I looked online ahead of time and saw that they have this cool allergy chart for Chick fil A and it said the grilled chicken was soy, wheat, etc free. So I definitely hyped it up and she was excited (obviously I learned not to do that again lol), because when I got there and saw ALL the ingredients for them soy was definitely in there. This really frustrated me but lets not go into that lol. She happily enjoyed her fries and fruit cup. 

William decided to have an explosive diaper in the play structure. Let me first say I NEVER.....NEVER go anywhere without complete sets of clothes for both my kids. They are always in the bag and usually more in my car because it's a mess. I do not know what happened but I had nothing at all. Obviously we cleaned up and rushed off the structure (don't forget the crying 3 year old cause we now have to leave right away) to change him. I will spare you non-parents the details. But just imagine flowing poop everywhere and on everything. YEP! This girl pulled up next to my car where I was cleaning him up and clothes and wipes are falling out of the car and she gave me a great pity look :/ 

Then comes the fun part where I realize there is nothing in that whole care for him to wear and we still have 2 places to go. We live 30 minutes from all these stores so there is no going home. So he ended up in a pair of his sisters mud covered polka dot tights that I found in the car pocket. And off we went to costco haha!

(my son's awesome attire)

Costco. is. a. zoo. Do not got there unless it's 10 am! I felt super on it as I checked ingredients on everything and then forgot to grab half of them (again....yep!) A few people also laughed at his tights but who cares LOL!

(you can sense the exasperation in this one:) 

We got to hold up the entire food line while they got the box for their "fruit" smoothie so I could see the ingredients.........just because I want to make 20 angry Christmas shoppers behind me hate me even more than they already do cause my kids are freaking out :)

(This is line to LEAVE Costco!)

Moral of the story, take clothes everywhere with you and maybe don't go to 4 places in one morning. 

But look at this full fridge! Beauty!!

Honestly even though crazy, I loved this day. It was normal. I have been learning to appreciate the normal parent struggles of having kids instead of the isolating ones we have been facing lately where we are always at some kind of test or doctors office. Today was great :) Kids are awesome :)  

I usually wait to blog until late at night when all kids are asleep  in bed and duties are done, but some scenarios are so funny and challenging I just have to stop and write them out so that I will hopefully one day look back and at least snicker?

Or at least to give you a good laugh if you don't have kids.

When I worked my first job at the coffee shop/deli I used to get excited when I could make someone's sandwich order super fast..........like really fast! At the bank I found pride in working quickly and dealing out cash cleanly and swiftly. 

Today I found pride in wrapping a present. Seriously. Somehow these menial daily tasks come to be huge accomplishments when you have two kids (you out there with 4 or more, you win!) I decided we should wrap this present really quickly (haha) since it's not really a valid thing to put off until my husband is home to help.....I mean really! 

So I sit down on the ground to let Juliana "help" me wrap a present for a little friend's birthday party tomorrow. She loves to cut and use tape -- obviously, she's almost 3. As I attempt to fold each piece over the box William is also right there to help tear anything I literally don't have my body blocking him from (imagine that game "protect the president" yep that was me with the present). At the same time Jules' decides it's time to cut right down the middle as well as the sides. Awesome. Yay for learning and using scissors. My kids were somehow not fooled with the little pieces of wrapping paper I gave them each to play with...HA! There's nothing quite like trying to block a crafty one year old from climbing on top of the box every second while you have tape on each finger and a hand over the scissors the 3 year old is using. Magically we somehow got paper around all sides of this large box. Lots of words were exchanged like "please stop screaming William" and "Ok put the tape right.......that spot works too." I think I'll happily find pride in looking at that sadly wrapped present haha! I know fellow moms can relate. These kinds of circumstances happen ALLLLLL day long and sometimes all you can do is laugh. Some day you will go to the bathroom and not have an audience shredding toilet paper or overflowing the sink with water. 

What fun with that be right? :) 

Have a great day!!! 

P.S. 

This video shows why I don't usually blog during the day. Annnnnnnd they got the markers out and decided to TOGETHER color this awesome present.