Let's Just Forget THAT Happened...

Wow. Yesterday was just a beating, you guys. I woke up to pain radiating through my left side (that would be from the overachieving ovary) which stayed with me all day. I could barely move without wincing. And of course, now that I might be in the beginning stages of GESTATING, I felt weird taking the prescription painkillers which were given to me for my usual post-ovulatory pain. PSA: Tylenol Extra Strength doesn't do crap.

Later, I needed to grocery shop, which is always a treat with two kids anyways. Of course on this particular excursion Addy decided to have the sort of screaming fit which inspires complete strangers to whisper amongst themselves about "kids these days." The scenario was as follows: Addy is playing with her chap stick while sitting in the basket of the cart. Eli keeps turning around, enviously staring, grunting and pointing at the chap stick and occasionally trying to wrench it away from her. She momentarily allows him to hold it, then suddenly snatches it back and screams at him "It's mine! You share!"

Repeat this a few times and I'm losing my patience, so I instruct her to just hand the chap stick to me, and tell her I will return it to her in the car where her poor little brother can't be driven insane with it. Addy complies without incident, but about five minutes later she must suddenly relive the injustice and trauma or something, because she bursts into hysterical sobs, begging incoherently for her chap stick and screaming at me that "Is mine! You share, Mommy! You share my chap stick!"

Snot and tears are all over her face, and at this point I can't push the cart any farther for fear she's going to tip it over with her manic flailing. Everyone in a ten yard vicinity is staring at me. I pick her up out of the cart for her own safety, sustaining a few wild kicks and jabs in the process, and put her down, where she promptly crumples to the floor. "I! Want! My! Chap Stick!" she weeps into the filthy tile.

Now, everything in my psyche is screaming, "Give her the ever loving chap stick, you moron! You have placed yourself in a lose-lose scenario here, and the best thing you can do is cut your losses and spare yourself further humiliation." But the smidgen of parental wisdom that was left rattling in my brain intoned, "You had a perfectly good reason to confiscate the chap stick, and regardless, you cannot give in to this kind of behavior. If you cave, all she will learn is that you're more worried about being embarrassed in public than about sticking to the rules."

So I gathered up my resolve and continued pushing the cart. She followed behind me, sobbing and stumbling like a sloppy drunk, ranting at me alternately to "Gimme my CHAP! STICK!" and "Put me back! Put me back in the CART!" I would stop every minute or so, bend down so I could meet her eyes, and tell her as calmly as I could manage that I would put her back in the cart as soon as she could settle down, but that the chap stick was staying in my pocket until we got to the car.

It literally took about ten minutes (or it could have been a YEAR, for how slowly time dragged on) before she finally calmed down and put up her arms to be lifted back in the cart. Once settled in, she sniffed and asked in a shaky, piteous voice, "See the fishes please?"

So off I trudged, my face as red as it's ever been, to show her and Eli the fish tanks. Looking at her, gazing at the goldfish and softly exclaiming over the colors, you would never have guessed that two minutes earlier she had been behaving like the most appalling brat I'd ever seen.

Later into the shopping trip, Eli grabbed his milk cup from me and arced it backwards all over his sister, the groceries, and the floor of the shopping center. But really, that was just icing on the Exploding Cake of Doom that was this day. So was the woman behind me in the check-out line who lectured me about allowing Eli to suck his thumb because "it's such a hard habit to break. You should have started him on pacifiers instead." So was three of the grocery bags breaking while I was bringing them inside.

Ah well. Today is a fresh start. My side doesn't hurt so bad anymore, and I have a wedding to go to tonight! Without children! Should probably decide what I'm going to WEAR now... Is it sad that the few wedding-appropriate dresses I own are all MATERNITY dresses?