The Devil Went Down to Safeway

Here’s me confessing that I rarely bring my kids with me to the grocery store. So many reasons why;

1- sleazy magazine headlines are worse than kids TV

2- I don’t want to EXPLAIN why you’re not getting a fruit roll up for the 300th time, even if you do pick a yucky flavor, even if you say please and promise to clean and be nice and give me a bite I SAID NO.

3- And shut up please, I am counting. 28.54-1.25 coupons plus 8%tax minus the fucking fruit roll up that I’m going to pretend I don’t see if I remember to do that when you’re trying to unload the cart with no regard for the fact that I am still counting oh and “HI, KATHY” don’t you dare make unnecessary conversation with her, the popsicles will melt.

Yeah- shopping with kids sucks. I can bring them, one at a time. I prefer to bring the infant, she’s easy and the 2 yr old, she just sits in the cart for the ride. But the older kids, no thank you. It takes all the fun out of shopping. And I mean shopping in every female retail therapy sense of the word. See, I don’t get to be one of those shopping moms lately. I haven’t seen the inside of Old Navy in almost a year. I don’t even HAVE sunglasses right now.

(I’m lying just to make a point, but I swear I didn’t buy anything when I was there because it was the $1 flip flop day and the line wrapped around the store, and I laughed because flip flops are $1 at a lot of stores, these doofuses were pissing away their Saturday by standing in line for 2-3 hours to save a few bucks on flip flops with the words “Old Navy” on the side.)

Sorry, I digress.

Anyway, I’ve always hated malls and I’m really just not a shopper, OK. I’m a coupon shopper, Today I am getting 6 bottles of Olay Ribbons and 5 boxes of Ritz crackers for a total of $2 and if you wanna save a few bucks I highly recommend you get addicted to coupon shopping because it is great fun. But I’m not giving you the name of the coupon shopping website because this is a small town with only one Walgreens.

So last week I break my rule because she spent a smaller portion of the day in trouble for being horrid, and I’m thinking I’ll reward her with a nice little trip to the grocery store. We just needed milk but thank goodness I had my coupons with me because I had a 2.25 off of electrasol and it was on sale for $3 AND part of the buy 25 items, get $20 back. Quick math here, if I got 25 electrasols I’d be spending 18.75 and getting back $20- so basically they paid me to take away the electrasol. WooHoo, I love deals like that.

Bubba wants some chocolate but she doesn’t dare ask. When we got to the parking space, some noise outside turned off just in time to emphasize the dramatic sound of the automatic door lock locking her in the car and me saying “Do not ask for anything. If you can make it to the checkstand without asking me for anything, I will get you a treat. If you ask, you get nothing. understand?”

So we had a deal. We’re shopping. I’m counting coupons, getting all excited about the electrasol tabs. She’s restless. She’s not asking. I decided to praise her. “you’re doing great, sweetie.” Why do kids think they can stop being good once you notice it? Whoever thought of positive reinforcement is really an idiot.

Anyway, she doesn’t ever ASK for anything, but she lowers her voice into a deep, throaty, gravelly voice and says

“this is your spirit talking. Buy your kids some Sunny D. Or I will kill you Mwahahahaha.”

and so I ignored her, y’know, just in case it really was a voice in my head. She must have amused herself, so she does it again.

“Lisa, this is a spirit talking. You must buy cookie dough. It’s on sale 2 for $6. Buy it for your kids.”

Some man at that point picked up two of them and walked away, as if he didn’t even hear her, but obviously he did. And his name is Lisa, right?

“Lisa, you must get frozen strawberries for smoothies. They are nutritious. And delicious.”

Wow- the devil is now nutritionally conscious. Some lady shot us a nasty look, so I told Bubba

“Knock it off or I’ll have you exorcised again.”

“Mommy (in the little girl voice, now) “How come you never exercise anymore?”

FINALLY- the checkstand, this is the end of grocery shopping, we made it. Put items on cart, hand cashier coupons. Smile discreetly when he notices my gallon of milk and 25 boxes of electrasol cost a total of $22 and that their machine is printing me a $20 coupon. In a perfect world.

Something beeped and he cursed and so I’m sitting there ready to cut whoever doesn’t cooperate with my couponing, and I hear her, over by the sunglasses, speaking in that voice.

“buy your kids some chocolate bars.”

No way in heck am I buying anyone a chocolate bar at this point. If you allow evil spirits to speak through you at the grocery store, it still counts as asking, and that’s against the rules. No. No. no. I’m ignoring you and giving you the eye, so turn around and look at me. So you can see it.

The lady at the checkstand next to us leans back and says “your kid is freaking me out.” I don’t want to take my eyes off this grocery checker who is like looking up the code or something, I don’t want him secretly palming away my coupons and messing up my game. So I act like I didn’t hear my daughter and say “What is she doing?”

The lady says “She’s invoking Satan to get some chocolates” Here- and she tosses my daughter a mini snickers. “Cool” Bubba says with all five of her missing teeth, and the lady says (smiling, laughing) “just quit it with the voice, kid.”

Oh finally he gives me a total. I smile, just like I planned and he handed me my receipt and didn’t notice the $20. Damn, how anticlimactic. So I comment “And I got $20 back.” Cool. I collect my evil kid and we head out of the store.

Yesterday I went through her line and I said “I think of you every time my daughter makes her Satan voice.” And she says “And I think of her every time I hear Satan.”

If you like stories where kids communicate with the devil, you’ll like this one, too, from Good mom bad mom.

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Bubba

Every now and then one of the girls stands out from the crowd, and sparkles a little extra. Maybe I shouldn’t say sparkles, that might give the reader the impression that she was being extra angelic lately and that isn’t the case at all. In fact, she’s been horrid. Nothing unusual or uncharacteristic for her age (she’s 7). She forgets everything I say within 30 seconds and manages to always do the exact opposite (what are the chances?)

Anyhow, I gave M1 the spotlight a while back, because she was sparkling and now the light will shine on G1.

Did I mention she’s horrid?

She also happens to be amazing. Why are kids like that? As long as her amazing-ness outshines her horrid-ness, she stays out of trouble. Lately she’s been walking a fine line.

I should mention that she started calling herself Bubba when she was two and it just stuck. I realize Bubba isn’t a feminine nickname. I swear it has nothing to do with the fact that I knew in my heart that she was a boy until 3 weeks before she was born. Mothers have instincts, OK. And I do think it would be funny if a boy tattooed Bubba on himself as a tribute to her love. However, I can’t picture a boy worthy and handsome enough saying “I love you Bubba.”

Anyhow, she’s been recycling lately. Each kid has her own financial niche, M1 runs a dog-sitting business and stray dog rescue, E1 shakes us down for babysitting cash, and swindles the littler ones in exchange for trinkets. M2 unfortunately gets paid for being cute and so far the two little ones haven’t found jobs yet, but they’ve got feelers out there and they’re good at networking so I’m not concerned.

Bubba’s got all the neighbors putting their recyclables into crates that she swaps out and empties for them. She’s got my husband’s friends delivering bags and bags full of aluminum cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles. She has like 7 garbage cans all sorted along the side of the driveway. Whenever anyone throws anything away, she grills us to see if we looked for a recycling symbol.

I’m not complaining, 7 garbage cans along the side of the driveway, whatever. My princess is a trash digger, whatever. We’ve even got a rubbermaid bin in the back of the car because there’s always some kind of recyclable garbage in a public parking lot. I’m now packing baby wipes, because I think purell is really overkill.

When she was 3 she liked to wear formal dresses every day. I gave up on regular clothes and bought a bunch of second hand flower girl dresses at Value Village. I didn’t even dry clean them, ever. When she was 4 she went through a period of recurring fevers, every 4-6 weeks she’d shoot up really hot and have nightmares about black things.

She was raised by her sisters. When she was less than 1 we lived in Iowa and I worked full time while she stayed home with her dad and sisters, watching shrek. A lot. When she was 2 1/2 we opened the restaurant and her older sisters (9 and 6) took care of her sometimes in our office and sometimes at home. I am sure they didn’t have stringent TV rules either.

That’s one of the things she’s horrid about right now, reciting the snotty songs and music she hears on TV. I’m trying to reclaim her by banning the television and reading her good books. She’s loving the extra time, and the stories. Last night we read from Little House on the Prairie. Laura has a tendency to be naughty, too. Anne of Green Gables also has a naughty streak. I like discussing misbehavior without blame. I like that in literature she can be exposed to the other person’s perspective.

Shes a bold little girl. She likes gardening, she goes outside in her jammies to sit in the sun each morning before she even eats. She likes construction, she uses power tools and lumber scraps to build things. She built me a little “laptop stand” and even stained it. She worships her Daddy, he can do no wrong. She invents sandwiches all the time. They usually have cream cheese in them. She apologizes to me and it makes me wonder why I ever got angry to begin with. (Then I remember, it was probably her screeching scream) She’s unique. The other day we went hiking (gentle, stroller-pushing on the nature trail hiking.) She “forgot” her shoes, so I made her hike barefoot. I would have given her my flip flops but she never complained. Instead, she said “I love the warm dirt.” When all the other kids complained about our restaurant business, she loved it. She bawled when we closed. She’s still upset about it. She wants to be the president of the company when she grows up. Her other option is to own a coffee and muffin shop. It’s no wonder, she was born in the kitchen. When she lost her first tooth, she removed with needle nose pliers.

In the last picture here, she’s at the recycling center, running back to the car, excited to share with me how much money she made. Yes, she’s wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope. That’s her recycling uniform.

When I had one child, I thought she was the product of me. Every awesome thing she did, I just knew it was because I was doing something right, greatness like that doesn’t simply happen; look at other people’s kids, they suck. Having 6 girls has made me realize that they each really are their own self. And that amazing-ness comes in many flavors. Sometimes, it’s even sour.

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So you’re like, homeschooled. Wanna be a bimbo?

My tweens (Gosh, I hate that word) are just loving a vlog (video blog) of Rebeka J, a homeschooled girl on Youtube. We first found her through this hilarious “So, you’re like homeschooled… video” Actually, I think it’s called Stereotypes, but whatever.

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I got a promotion- Yay Me

I am the new official Homeschooling Feature Writer at Suite101, you can check out my site, please. I’m also the Homeschooling Editor for TypeAmom, and we really need a few writers there, I urge you to come submit a few articles at TypeA. Kelby Carr runs the site and she is a pleasure to work with, and they’re having a back-to-school contest, so come write and enter, OK. Thanks. Suite is accepting writers, too and the income is great. Just pick one, OK. How many times can I say OK?

I am also the new Budget Decor Editor at Bella Online. That is an amazing site. Bella Online has so much to offer in just about everything you could be interested in. Their message forums are active and the site editors are a bunch of hard working, smart ladies. I think it’s the most socially supportive site for writers that I have worked with. If you’re new to writing, or if you think you want to write, check out the “now hiring” at BellaOnline to see what positions they have open.

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Democratic Schools

This is just part one of the Voices From The New American Schoolhouse

Transcripts of the video are available for online viewing.

And here is yet another documentary called “Schooled” which looks interesting.

I love how people are using film making and the internet to raise awareness. It’s happening with childbirth and films like Rikki Lake’s documentary, and several other films about the dangers of over-medical birth practices. I’d like to see more independent films about vaccines, I planned to make one about Autism, but since we don’t have Autism in our house (that I know of) the research wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.

Anyhow- I wonder if any of my readers, John-Holt reading homeschoolers and unschoolers that you are… hopefully someone is….

Do you have a democratic home? I’m not sure I’d be able to do it. I’m too bossy and too lenient and too authoritarian all at the same time. Hopefully I impart enough rule-breakerisms and question-authorityness to provide the kids a fair enough balance. Listening to the kids in the video discuss their class meetings and stuff is really interesting. I thought I posted about another Sudbury school Docu-Drama recently but I can’t find it anywhere.

AND- my TJedbook came in the mail today finally. In case you were wondering.

Lotsa crazy crud going down at the Hannigan house. Don’t miss another post,

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Things I’m glad I found today

Cooking by Numbers.com
SO- on the main page, you check off the check boxes, naming everything in your fridge. Milk.. check…. butter…. check….. cheese …. check…..you get the picture. There’s another check box I checked that said “I feel lucky.” Apparently I was wrong because all of my “real food” ingredients were only 72% of what I needed to make mushroom soup.

I hope they’re working on adding more ingredients and recipes, because I don’t plan on going grocery shopping for at least another week and I can’t just serve 72% of mushroom soup. I love mushroom. If we had some mushrooms, we’d have 100% of the ingredients.
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My friend Emily (who gave me backlinks in like every post she’s made this week, and I just barely noticed -sorry, em) is the queen of green, and she’s always finding cool ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.

I think we were discussing ways to make tote bags from crocheting grocery bags, because my sweet sweet friend Myrna sent me this pattern and I haven’t tried it yet because I don’t like safeway’s ugly tan bags and I keep meaning to remember which store gives away pink bags and which store has blue bags so I can combine them into an overall purpleness am too lazy.

Anyhow- the point here that I wanted to share with you was this site Emily found where they actually fuse the plastic bags together into fabric and they sew it like fabric. Etsy has a lot of people selling fused plastic bag stuff. Check out those baby bibs. We don’t even use bibs. Yeah- those ugly Safeway bags look really cute when they’re a flirty plastic dress. The absolute encore, though is the octopus bag. I tried to find something different to like since Emily named it in her post but really, it’s worthy of a remention. That should be a word. Remention. Maybe it is and I just don’t know it. My spell check liked the idea. And I’ll also mention the plastic sea creatures, but I won’t remention them. And the Target Messenger bag is so darned cute I would be buying it for my friend Faith if I were half as cool as she is right now, but I”m not. One day, I will be but not this month apparently. Last month, I might have done it.

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Just Checking My Mail Again

Dear Mrs Hannigan,

We’ve considered very carefully your proposal for free mental health care. While we do agree that the future of the free world may depend upon your sanity, we’re not entirely convinced that we would like to participate its restoration.

True, you have six daughters and several generations from now, it’s conceivable that if they all had 6 children of their own you could, indeed, have 36 grandchildren and then eventually, 216 great-grandchildren. Your potential scope of influence, then, as you mentioned, is quite high but what are the chances that each of your children will have 6 offspring of their own? Surely, you’ve frightened at least the oldest one into a childless existence.

True, you show signs of insanity at every turn. Your water and corn issues are definitely obsessive-compulsive. Your inclination to birth at home, homeschool and work from home are good clues that you have a phobia about leaving home, and that your impending move is causing you severe psychosis. You won’t be able to blame it on the price of gas for long, since your husband is building that hydrogen fuel cell.

Rest assured, we do not believe that writing more than one blog is a sign of multiple personality disorder, or schizophrenia, as you fear. We do believe that it’s a wise way to niche market yourself. However, creating a fake identity to write a blog whose scope could harm the reputation of your primary blog might be on the crazy side. “Integration.” Let that be your key word.

Unfortunately, the main reason we can not treat you is simply because we are a federally funded organization that is legally obliged to push pharmaceutical treatments at every turn and we get financial bonuses for having our patients be 100% medicated, much like how pediatricians receive bonuses for having a patient body that is 100% vaccinated. It’s nothing personal.

We do have a few recommendations for you and we hope you take them to heart. Begin to keep a normal schedule, you can’t expect to feel happy and healthy when you’re only sleeping 4-6 hours a night. Also, just because you have coupons that make pre-packaged foods free or cheap doesn’t mean you have to eat that way. Donate it or something. Finally, your idea of getting all of your work done each day before checking your email or logging on to any social network is a good one. Days that you’ve stuck with that ideal have been profitable. Make a habit of sticking with that every day.

Generally, if you have six daughters, homeschool, work from home, skip childbirth drugs, breastfeed, don’t go to church, don’t cut your hair, fail to file important tax forms, write thank-you cards that never get mailed, have more than 30 bottles of shampoo in your pantry, use cloth diapers, wear your baby, let your baby eat rocks, and don’t eat certain foods because they’re not natural, it’s a good sign that you might be crazy. Just do what everyone else does, OK.

Sincerely

Dr Bowguss and staff

Writer’s Health Group

**Dear Mrs Hannigan is a regular feature of my blog. It’s bullshit. Apparently I need this disclaimer because a couple people thought there really was a camera implanted in my forehead once and that I really did scare away reality show producers.

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Shamelessly torturing you with pictures of my baby eating a rock

Such a big decision. Which will sooth my gums better, the rock or the dead flower?

Mmm cold rocks, yesss.

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The View From my Bedroom

Isn’t life sweet. I filmed this the other day. G1 ran into the house like a hurricane (that’s just how she is) and started screaming about birds in the window. This is just outside my bedroom window. I set up the board and stuck the camera in one window, then we stayed very quiet and watched from inside the house. For 20 minutes. I’ve edited it down for you just so you could see (and hear) how sweet it was. Enjoy…

.

And have I ever mentioned that I love John & Kate plus 8? Check out the Jon & Kate Plus 8 Seasons 1 + 2 DVD Set!
it’s a bargain, and much easier than trying to remember it’s Monday every time Monday rolls around and then noticing several times throughout the week that you’ve missed Monday and cursing about it (silently of course) only to forget, yet again, when Monday comes back.

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Are you in the pity party?

My awesome friend Kelby decided that since there are a few of us Blogging ladies that won’t be at the BlogHer convention, we should have a full-fledged pity party. I agree.

Join the party, enter Kelby’s contest and steal my graphic here (but link it to me, wouldja)

Do you have plans that are infinitely more exciting than the BlogHer convention? I don’t. But I guess I could go hiking.

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Lotsa crazy crud going down at the Hannigan house. Don’t miss another post,

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