Insanity is hereditary ... you get if from your kids!

That saying was on a button in a birthday card we bought for my father many years ago ... it is still so true! I have to say, though, that I don't know how I would get along without my often frustrating nearly 12-yr old - Robert. We butt heads more often than not, especially over work ethics and quality control, but in truth he does a ton for me especially with the babies (getting milk cups, taking out dirty diapers, strapping kids into car seat and releasing them too just to name a few). I try my darndest to not have all of the kids with me when I go shopping, especially since Ginny started practicing for 2, but sometimes I just gotta go ...

I often marvel at my good friend, Karrie, who has 4 children as well - but her oldest is in kindergarten. I did lots of marvelling yesterday as I decided I HAD to go down to Bakersfield and daycare was not an option. I also decided that we needed to have a better schedule and so devoted the entire moring to schooling first. We didn't leave until about 2pm. The kids weren't to terrible ... for them. In Target I was very grateful for Robert because then I could take two carts which worked well until Josh had to be put into the back of one because he is categorically incapable of not touching things and the only cart with space was the one Ben was riding in front of which meant that the rest of the store trip consisted of them beating on eachother. Target was also made incredibly "fun" by going down the toy isle (yes, I do know better) so that I could get some little toys to put up as incentives for Ben to start using the toilet. Josh was happy with Hot Wheels, but Ben is set on Thomas the Tank Engine (can we say more $$$). However, I am getting desperate, so I picked up a couple of 4-packs of trains and immediately had to let the boys hold them because Ben was setting off car alarms with his screaming (I am only slightly exaggerating). Then, we went to Costco. I made the monumental mistake of putting both Ben and Ginny in the same cart (because those carts are heavy and Ben had spent the better part of the Target trip beating up on Robert who definitely deserved a break). Ben and Ginny are really 14 months apart, but Ginny is nearly as tall as Ben and they are definitely at the same "stage" (meaning terrible 2 phase) so they are for all intents and purposes "twins." The spent the entire time slapping eachother - I mean really getting into the slapping thing. I would pull them apart for a bit and then slap the one that was hitting the hardest and tell them to fold their arms and sit still (which got me some great looks, let me tell you). The would both fold their arms and just GLARE at me, put their heads down and literally start bumping each other with thier shoulders and cycle would begin again. I really had to just laugh (only slightly histerically) until, of course, they got going too far again and I had to administer a "cycle adjustment." I also found out that car seats cannot contain Toddlers who really want what the other one has because Ben will reach out with his toy toward Ginny (just to pull it back - isn't he nice!) and then go absolutely ballistic when Ginny manages to snatch it from him (which she does every single time ...). I had to stop the car several times on the way home to give Ben back the box of trains which are now decorating my mantle because they need to be seen to be an effective motivation, right?Of course, silly me, I forgot my kids' ingenuity! Josh has shown Ben how to turn over one of the toy buckets to stand on and Josh can just reach them outright. So now, Ben will play for a few minutes and then just start screaming and pointing for the mantle ... it got better when I told him that I was going to give them to Ginny if she started using the potty first. Want to come visit?