Welcome to a slightly different version of Not Me! Monday – it’s Not My Child! Monday instead. Both blog carnivals were started by MckMama over on her blog, My Charming Kids.  Not My Child! Monday is where I tell you all sorts of things my child has certainly NOT done recently. Thing that, if she HAD done them, might be rather therapeutic to share with you, not to mention entertaining.  Because if we can’t laugh at ourselves and our children, life’s just not as fun.

First off, Siena learned early on not to put unapproved objects in her mouth. Her crib rails are not approved objects, so of course she has never chewed on them. If she had started cutting teeth on her crib rails, I probably would have tied the little bumper from her cradle onto the top to protect her crib from unsightly teeth marks her from splinters.  And of course, if the bumpers had been tied on for several months, there’s no way she would have just recently discovered about four unprotected inches of the crib rail and started gnawing away, prompting me to tie a pair of pants on there.  Not my child!

A couple weeks ago I did a quick grocery trip for ingredients to a scrumptious Texas Caviar I was bringing to my friend’s baby shower. (People asked for the recipe when I served it at Siena’s First Birthday, and again at the shower. I found it on this blog post if you want to check it out. ) I was in the checkout line with my little basket, Siena on my back in the Ergo baby carrier, when the checker lady announced that the phone lines were down all throughout town and for about a hundred miles around us, so debit cards wouldn’t work. I didn’t have my purse and checks with me, since I usually just slip my ID and debit card into the pouch of the Ergo when I’m making one quick stop with Siena. I did have some parking cash hidden in my car though, so I left my basket with the checker lady while we ran to get it. On the way back from the car, with cash in hand, Siena still perched on my back, I did NOT discover she was carefully clutching one avocado in each of her hands. Nope, I’m not enabling a petty thief at 16 months old. Not my child!

There is, admittedly, some possibility that  Siena may have exuberantly kicked off her less-than-securely latched high chair tray, causing her snacks to scatter over an alarming radius from her chair.  Had that happened, however, Siena certainly would not have made it a game to eat said snacks off the floor *without the use of her hands* while I ran for the broom. Not my child!

(Look closely to see the fish cracker between her lips above)

(For the record, I wouldn’t have allowed such unsanitary manners to continue as long as I was trying to capture reasonably good images on my cell phone, even if the floor had just been baby-wiped clean the day before.)

My child did not give me the opportunity to teach you all, in case you ever wonder, what happens when you drop a metal hair clip into the center column of a humidifier and let it sit for several days until your Daddy discovers it.  (brown gritty water, rusty pitted clip for the curious) Not my child!

As I lifted her up to wipe her bottom, my child did not toss one of her favorite touch and feel board books into the toilet. The toilet she had just put to good use, and had yet to flush.  Therefore, Siena did not watch me with a confused look as I transfered her book from the toilet to the trash.  Not my child!
(And if you are silently thanking me for grabbing a picture after the transfer rather than before, you are welcome. I’m thoughtful like that.)

No, that didn’t happen because my daughter never throws things.  Especially not out in public.  Like in a Gymboree outlet store. Like if she had been carrying around two butterfly shaped purses  (“fwy! fwy!”) and her adorable attachment to them had convinced me to buy her one to keep her church toys in, and she got angry when I tried to get her to put one back on the shelf so we could buy the other one, but she wanted them both so she threw them both down.  That’s the sort of thing she never does.  My daughter would be so thankful I was going to buy her one purse that she’d be very happy. She would not insist on having all or nothing, ultimately getting nothing. Nope, not my child!

How about you? Have you or your child(ren) NOT done anything lately that might make us smile? Leave a comment or click Read Comments to see what others have shared.

UPDATE: If not all the pictures have loaded, (you see question mark icons instead of pictures) will you please leave a comment to let me know? And try refreshing the page to see if that helps. Thank you!

length – 31 inches
weight – 20 pounds

I’m including some pictures of you at your appointment. (Click here to see pictures from earlier doctor visits.) For my own memory, here’s a snapshot of your development. I’ll use the areas of development we documented when I taught special education preschool.

Personality

Siena is a social little girl who greets most adults she sees, and particularly loves dogs, babies, and children.  She loves to dance (sometimes even while nursing) and is observant and persistent.  She likes to hold two matching items in each hand, and walks around the house trading items to find better matches. She might start with two wooden puzzle pieces, then trade one for a plastic dog to match the dog puzzle piece. Later she may set down the puzzle piece and pick up a second plastic dog.

Gross Motor Skills

Siena can jump in place, spin (from a standing or sitting position), walk forwards and backwards independently. She climbs up stairs using her hands and knees, and backs down stairs with guidance. When an adult holds one hand, she can walk up and down stairs, bringing her feet together on each step.  She consistently squats down and stands up without losing her balance.

Fine Motor Skills

Siena has a proficient pincer grasp, points spontaneously, scribbles with an age appropriate grasp, and makes several gestures in sign language that require finger dexterity. She seems to prefer her right hand. She often attempts to hold two things in one hand but does not yet squirrel small items in her fist.

Adaptive Skills – Self  Help

Siena can take off her socks and can unfasten the Velcro closures on her shoes. She tries to put clips in her hair and hats on her head. She can remove hair clips, headbands, and hats.  She helps with dressing and undressing by pushing her arms through sleeves, stepping her legs in and out of pants while steadying herself against a parent, holding out one foot at a time for socks and shoes, and uses her arms to push a shirt over her head when a parent is pulling it over her head. She holds still for several seconds to get her hair styled and watches quietly as her nails get trimmed. Siena sits on a pottty seat on the regular sized toilet at each diaper change, and claps for herself when she urinates in the toilet about once per day.  She moves a toothbrush back and forth in her mouth, and is working on tolerating a parent brushing her teeth for her. When prompted, she will imitate  ”cleaning up” by putting her toys in a designated container. She likes to wipe her high chair tray with a baby wipe, and is growing increasingly tolerant of her hands and face getting wiped.  Siena tends to make a screeching or  ”eh-eh-eh”  noise  is frustrated, and is working on signing or saying “Please” in  order to request help appropriately. Siena feeds herself with her fingers and practices with spoons and forks. She drinks from an open cup, held by an adult, with some spilling. She has some exposure to drinking from a straw and from sippy cups, but resists holding her own cup. She does hold a CamelBak brand waterbottle with an internal straw, which doesn’t require tipping the waterbottle in order to drink. She currently drops her cup and fingerfood on the floor to indicate she is done eating, and is working to replace this behavior by asking for “down.”  She currently responds to a prompt when asked if she wants “more” or “down” but is working on spontaneously making her request to get down before throwing things.

Adaptive Skills – Following a Routine

Siena used to protest strongly when getting into her carseat, but now accepts the straps and moves a toy from one hand to the other to assist with getting into the straps. She seems to anticipate each element of family routines such as waving goodbye when Daddy leaves for work, being lifted up to touch lights on her way to bed, or reading books and brushing her teeth while sitting on the potty.  She gets frustrated at times if we try to skip a step but does not demonstrate rigid adherence to a routine.

Social Skills

Siena has been described as “the most personable baby I’ve ever met”  by a woman she sits near most weekends at Mass, as “so social” by strangers, and as “the family extrovert” by family members.  She takes toys from playmates and also offers toys.  She enjoys playing “chase” with other toddlers and children.   Siena brings books to her parents to read to her and plays simple turn-taking games such as fetch, peek-a-boo, and “gimme five.”  She giggles when she offers food to a parent, kisses her stuffed animals, or has her stuffed animals kiss each other (or her shoes, or the wall…)

Cognitive

Siena activates simple musical toys, enjoys put-and-take toys,  removes pieces from wooden non-interlocking puzzles and attempts to put them in but gets frustrated easily. Much of her independent play consists of moving toys from one surface to another, rocking them on the rocking chair or rocking horse, placing them in containers and scooting containers around. She does some spontaneous sorting toys by category, such as putting all the plastic fish toys in one group, the wooden puzzle pieces in another group, and the stacking cups in another. She loves board books, especially turning the pages (forward and backwards) and pointing to or labeling images she recognizes.  She does not yet identify her body parts, but when asked, “Where’s your nose?” will point to the nose of the person who asked the question.

Communication

Siena has an expressive vocabulary of about 35 words, signs 5 words using baby sign language, and demonstrates a growing grasp of receptive language. She communicates her wants and needs through a combination of single word utterances (not yet putting two words together), vocalizations, gestures, and signs. She uses language both to make requests and to label items around her.  She tries to imitate new words.

We love you so much Siena! All 31 inches, 20 pounds, and sixteen months of you! You’ve grown and learned so many things right before our eyes. I wish I could keep you from growing up and hold onto this precious toddler stage a bit longer, but then I suppose we’d miss out on the rest of the things you’re aching to learn and discover each day.  Go ahead then…keep growing…just not too quickly, ok?

They arrived after I returned home, around St. Valentine’s Day. While HawkInWinter enjoyed the care package, he was a bit disappointed to realize I had sent them before we met, rather than after.  Our relationship wasn’t quite defined at that point, though he was hoping the SURPRISE cookies were an indication I was interested.

Three years (and one week) ago today, HawkInWinter was no longer “my online guy” in another state, but was my first ever Valentine, and fiance to boot.  He had been accepted to graduate school in my state and lived about 40 minutes from me.  He’d made a big deal out of being too busy with grad school to do much for St. Valentine’s Day, so I  had a St. Valentine’s dinner with friends.  Back at my condo, HawkInWinter had let himself in and lit all sorts of candles, placed three colorful roses in a vase, written a beautiful card and even had music playing to welcome me as I walked in.  It was a wonderful SURPRISE.

Two years (and one week) ago today, HawkInWinter and I had been married for six months and were staring, wide-eyed and scared, at a positive pregnancy test.  Eleven weeks later, once we’d adjusted to the news of our unexpected blessing and shared it with our family and friends, HawkInWinter posted a blog titled “I’m Going to be a Daddy!” to tell the world about our St. Valentine’s Day SURPRISE.  (You can click the bold words to go see his post.)

One year (and one week ago) today, Siena posted a blog titled “What a Difference a Year Makes!” about all the things she could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch that year as opposed to her first St. Valentine’s Day inside my tummy.  She included pictures of herself, her buddy London, and my SURPRISES at the end of a sticky note treasure hunt.

One week ago today, I was back from two overnights at my parents’ house.  HawkInWinter was my date to a Friday evening Sweetheart Cabaret at my parents’ parish where my father and big sister served as “sound engineers” for the event.

On Saturday, Siena squealed at her own cleverness as she repeatedly kissed her reflection in the giant exercise ball while we got the house ready for a family party…

…clapped for herself when she did well at a toddler game on her auntie’s brand new iPhone…

…and handed out Valentines with her fingerpainted hearts on them. (Remember our adventures with fingerpaint?)

I attempted a recipe from Family Fun magazine with layers of red Jell-O and unflavored gelatin mixed with sweetened condensed milk. (If I do it again, I’ll follow the recipe on the box for Jigglers so they’ll work a bit better.)

Back at home  Sunday morning, HawkInWinter SURPRISED me with an envelope but no card inside, just a slip of paper that said, “Because St. Valentine’s Day sucks, I am going to make you work for your card. Who knows? You might find something extra along the way. First clue: HawkInWinter’s favorite movie.”    (Admittedly I looked in three or four DVD cases before finding my second clue!)  Some clues were tricky:  ”A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.” Some were silly, some sentimental, but  all had been carefully hidden so I was unlikely to find them before the hunt began. I even had to stand on a chair and remove a wall hanging to find a hint taped to the back of  it!

I finally found my card, and a couple clues after that, my first ever dozen red roses. We have found ways to SURPRISE each other each of the last four St. Valentine’s Days. So far Siena has been the best (and biggest!) SURPRISE for us both.

I’m thinking next year if HawkInWinter tries to lower my expectations with grumblings about being too busy or simply disliking the commercial holiday, I’ll be on to him. I really should learn he always has a SURPRISE or two up his sleeve!

Are you embarrassed to admit you gave your kids the Bepto-Bismol flavored pink conversation hearts you can’t stand? Feel a twinge of guilt as you select the Repeat Play option as you set your toddler in front of Baby Einstein? Worried what people would think if they knew you change into your workout clothes as you drive from the office to the gym? Not Me! Monday was born out of blogger MckMama’s desire to admit some of her imperfections and reveal a few moments she’d rather forget. You may find it therapeutic to join in and do the same thing! I sure do!

Have you ever tried to save time and effort by spot cleaning your floor with baby wipes rather than giving it a proper mopping?

Have you ever discovered it definitely takes LONGER to crawl around on your knees using a couple dozen baby wipes, than it would have taken to use a broom and mop in the first place, only to have that point driven home when you stood up to find your daughter fast asleep in her high chair?

Have you ever dropped a scoop of ice cream on the counter, then plopped it into your husband’s bowl? Especially on a day meant to celebrate the generosity and self-sacrificing love St. Valentine?

Have you ever had to tell your toddler it is NOT okay to kiss the toilet?

Have you ever heard yourself scold, “Baby Jesus is not for babies!” (If so, it was probably after your baby dropped a figurine and broke off a holy little finger, right?)

Have you ever raised an eyebrow at a dessert concoction made up of half a glazed doughnut, cinnamon, a pineapple ring, ice cream, and red hots? And then helped yourself to a second?

Yeah, me neither. Who would do any of those things? Not me!

Seconds?
No matter how resourceful you think you are, don’t tell your husband that you added apple and cherry baby food puree to the crockpot, even after he tells you how delicious your barbecue pulled chicken is. You may end up with more leftovers than you’d counted on.

Hypothetically Speaking…
IF your baby has one of those awesome rubbery bibs with a pocket to catch dropped morsels, and IF she’s repeatedly “asking” for refills of water in her plastic shotglass, and IF you’re too distracted emptying the dishwasher and making brownies vegetables to help each sip get to her lips…don’t be surprised when you take off the bib and it’s full to the brim with water she has carefully collected one half ounce at a time.

Excuse Me?
If you’re doing some early potty training, and love how cute your baby looks perched on the toilet with her special seat reading board books to herself, don’t be surprised if she starts clapping for anybody in the household who, um, passes gas.

Plump It Up
If your raisins have crystallized, you can plump them up in warm water (or microwave a bit) and keep them in the fridge. Easier for Baby to chew, probably better for her teeth than regular sticky raisins, and you don’t have to throw them away!

Act Your Age
When you find yourself sounding like a toddler, trying to pull your cell phone out of Baby’s hands to check the text that just came in, declaring, “It’s mine!” use the wording that worked so well in my preschool teacher days: Your turn. My turn. That tells them that even though they have it in this instant they don’t have it forever. Conversely, even though they DON’T have it this instant, it is not lost to them forever.

Eager Beaver

When I was browsing the various baby gizmos available for shower registries, I did not select a method for covering her crib’s railings from her gnawing teeth. Plastic and rubbery versions were available, but I didn’t want to permanently cover the pretty wood, and didn’t see any reviews about damage caused when removing the gizmos. I figured I would wait to see if Siena chewed on her crib, and if so, I figured I could teach her NOT to do so. (Sound like a first time pregnant mother to anybody else?) Not surprisingly, soon after Siena had teeth her crib started to look like it had been attacked by beavers while my angel slept. I noted a cloth covering in a friend’s blog, and tried using her old cradle bumpers (smaller than crib bumpers) tied around the railings to achieve a similar effect. It’s been a great solution so far!

Do you notice that my Toddler Edition is shorter than the Infant Edition? I’ll keep you posted as Siena teaches me more about parenting a toddler. In the meantime, I’d love to hear any tips YOU have to offer!Leave them in the comments section below.

Get Used To Used
Lots of baby items in very good shape end up in consignment shops, CraigsList, garage sales, even Freecycle. Before you buy yourself the swing, Jumparoo, or Bumbo seat you didn’t get at the baby shower, consider a used one for a fraction the price of new. (Just be very careful with used car seats and cribs.) I don’t think I’d ever set foot in a consignment shop before having Siena, but now I’m a regular. These are good resources for offloading your equipment when you’re done with it, too!

All You Need Is…Love?
Yes, it does help to gear up for Baby, but really all you need when you first come home from the hospital is a place for Baby to sleep. They most likely will send you home with diapers, wipes, a little shirt, a hat, baby shampoo, a pacifier if you want it, swaddling smarts, and either formula samples or a working grasp of breastfeeding! (Remind yourself of that if you start to have nightmares that Baby comes early and you don’t have bags packed or a perfect nursery!!)

Whistle While You Wipe
Whistling, making a funny noise, or narrating in a singsongy voice work wonders at making unpleasant experiences, such as wiping baby’s face, more fun. And if Baby’s having more fun, you are too!

Master The Middle
Dressing a wriggly, wailing newborn (or toddler…) can be tedious enough, but it’s even more frustrating when you have to unsnap and re-snap the onesie because you didn’t get them lined up right the first time. Once I started snapping the middle snap first, things got much faster because I did it correctly the first time!

Hierarchy of Fasteners
When choosing baby clothes: snaps beat buttons, zippers beat snaps!

Can You Hear Me Now?
We registered for a baby monitor, because we “knew” everybody needs a baby monitor. But we didn’t just get the cheapest baby monitor – HawkInWinter researched the kind 1) with the least static, 2) that operates on a special frequency so we wouldn’t pick up our neighbors’ baby monitors (and vice versa) and 3) that wouldn’t interfere with cordless phones or wireless internet.

And we never use our baby monitor.

We live in a one story house, and if she’s crying we can hear her. If she’s just making cooing noises at 3 am, we don’t particularly WANT to hear her. So that was sort of a waste.

What we LOVE though, is a handed down video monitor.

Apart from the adorable-ness factor of spying on her when she doesn’t know we’re watching, it’s been quite revealing about her sleep habits. I had THOUGHT she napped for about 40 minutes in the mornings. I discovered that once she quieted down from her disappointment over being left in her crib, she played silently for about 40 minutes (walking back and forth in her crib, lying down and waving at herself, paging through a board book…) then fussed when she was bored. Previously I was going in to get her after a minute or two of complaining, thinking she was done sleeping (when in reality she was done entertaining herself, but hadn’t slept). Now that I can see she hasn’t had a wink of sleep, sometimes I see she’s actually laying down and fussing, barely moving, close to falling asleep. Even if she hasn’t laid down yet, I’ve learned that if I wait her out, she will fall asleep for about an hour.

The same thing is true at the end of a nap. If she’s still laying down but complaining, there’s a chance she’ll go back to sleep another ten minutes or more before complaining again. If she’s standing up crying, I may as well go get her.

3 Strikes, You’re Out
I have learned not to follow the weight suggestions on packs of diapers.  If Baby’s diaper has had three blow-outs or leaks in a day, move to the next size up.  Siena is barely 21 pounds but is in size 5, which supposedly starts at 28 pounds.  I’m needing less stain remover since the switch.

Speaking of Stain Remover…

Not all onesies need to be saved. Chances are you have newborn and 3 month onesies coming out your ears. If you’re changing a particularly disgusting onesie and just can’t bring yourself to lift it over your newborn’s precious face (rolling first can help if it’s not too bad) don’t be afraid to declare it a disposable onesie. Simply – but carefully of course –  pull it away from Baby’s body, cut it off, and toss it in the diaper pail.

For those clothes you do want to salvage, I suggest collecting the pre-treated stained clothes in one of those zipping mesh laundry bags meant for washing pantyhose. Once I figured out this method, I simply checked the contents of the bag before choosing some to go in the dryer and others to spray and wash again. It was so frustrating to pull slightly-lighter-stained clothes out of the dryer, realizing I’d just set the stain. Baby clothes are so tiny that there can be a few dozen in each load. I didn’t always take the time to check each tiny item for stains between the washer and dryer, and you probably won’t either.

We All Need a Little Spooning

Every now and then, borrow Baby’s bowl and spoon and slowly feed yourself some ice cream nonfat organic yogurt. There’s just something very satisfying and comforting about that soft teensy spoon! Parents of infants can use all the indulgent little moments they can get, and for me that often included a tiny spoon.

Who else has some tips to share? Come back Friday for the Toddler Edition!

Here’s my therapeutic collection of a few things that did and did not happen this past week:

Siena DID work on drinking from a cup this week. She DID use a plastic, hand painted souvenir shot glass her Great Grandma Gee Bee gave her from a trip to Florida decades ago. It did NOT fall off the top shelf of the dishwasher, melt on the element, and stink up the house.

I DID forget my I.D. when I ran to the grocery store for a recipe that called for beer. I did NOT buy non-alcoholic beer and figure neither of us would notice a difference. Not us! We’re trendy people with sophisticated palettes for well brewed beers.

I DID make pudding for Siena to finger paint St. Valentine’s Day cards. The box did NOT have an expiration date of Oct 07.

I DID use pudding that said “5 Minutes To Homemade!” (whatever “homemade” means in this context…) I poured the powder into the bowl…and it was NOT somehow 3 hours later when I stirred in the cold milk to transform it into 5 Minute pudding.

I DID shave my legs in the bathtub this week. I did NOT let Siena in with me. Not me! Just the idea of that would make any good mother cringe, right?

Siena DID take a bath by herself this week, too. It did NOT end when she discovered the drain plug and I found myself scolding, “Uh-uh, yucky! That’s not a pacifier!” Nope, not me!

I DID try Siena’s hair in some perky pigtails this week. One pigtail DID fall out during the course of the day. I did NOT leave it that way for a second round of finger painting (pudding didn’t work so well) since she was hitting the bath right afterwards anyway. Not me! I always keep my daughter looking her best, with perfectly groomed hair and never looking like a shaggy ragamuffin. Especially if I’m going to be taking pictures.

Oh, and that certainly is NOT our clutter on the chair… or table… or floor… or counters in the background.  We were – um – at some other house. I don’t remember whose.

Back at the grocery store again, I DID carry Siena in the Ergo Baby Carrier, on my front, facing inward, the whole time. Siena did NOT have a runny nose at the time, or a terry cloth bib so I could wipe her nose without carrying a garbage bag for tissues. Not me! It is pretty inconsiderate to take a sneezing, slimy baby out in public, even if you do try to keep all the germs aimed at yourself.

HawkInWinter DID set off the smoke detector this week. It was NOT while the oven was still pre-heating, meaning it was really that dirty. Nope, not my oven!

I WAS excited to learn that Hulu would be playing all the Superbowl ads. I did NOT announce to my husband, “Now we don’t have to watch football in between commercials!” No, I’m definitely too much of a Spunky Sporty Spice to say that.

I DID have to change Siena’s jeans after her snack since she’d managed to sit on a chunk of banana. I changed her diaper, changed her jeans, put her down for a nap, cleaned her tray and went on with my afternoon. When it was time for her next snack, she did NOT plop right back down on the same chunk of banana. No way did I neglect to wipe her high chair seat the first time around. Not me!

So, that was my week. How was yours?

I’m back! Who knew that starting a blog would mean adding one more thing to feel guilty about? After nearly seven months without a post, I have a few stored up and hope to get back into the swing of things again. We’re using a different program for posting pictures, so it shouldn’t take me hours of previewing and correcting code for each post.

I’ll start off with a Not Me! Monday story for you. Remember Not Me! Monday? It was started by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

But first, take a look at a series of events that didn’t happen to us a couple weeks ago:

I did not forget to change my daughter’s diaper upon waking from her nap, since I’d been waiting for her to wake up so we could get groceries and prescriptions. I especially did not forget about that diaper until placing her into the shopping cart in the grocery store entrance, deciding to change it at the next stop. While nearly an hour into our shopping trip, I certainly didn’t run out of Baby Mum Mums from home (at least Baby Mum Mums aren’t sold at that particular grocery store, so it wasn’t completely tacky…yet). Because if I HAD run out of snacks from home and still had a hungry daughter, she might have turned around in her grocery cart seat and grabbed the package of freeze dried Yogurt Melts and started biting the photograph on the front of it. But even if she had done such a thing, I NEVER would have opened the bag of yet-to-be-paid-for toddler treats and fed her two at a time to buy myself (and my fellow shoppers) five more minutes without squawking before we checked out.

Once we arrived at the pharmacy, I most definitely DID take the whole diaper bag inside with me rather than just pop a single diaper into the zipper pouch of my Ergo baby carrier. And Siena was, of course, perfectly content to be carried in said baby carrier while we waited in line at the Drop Off counter, with no complaining, squirming, or shrieking to get “dow! dow! dow!” down.

And just because, during all our previous visits to this pharmacy, we’ve had a 30 minute wait between the front of the line at the Drop Off counter and getting in the back of the line at the Pick Up counter, I would NEVER have assumed that to be the case on this particular occasion, planning to change a soggy diaper during some of those 30 minutes. No, no, when I was told our prescriptions were filled and waiting on the shelf, I was pleasantly surprised and strolled my peaceful babywearing self to the back of the Pick Up counter line (during which time, I did NOT allow my daughter to take bottles of cold medicine off the shelves, line them up on the floor, then put them back again. I know medicine should never be confused with playthings).

Of course, once we reached the front of the line (and Siena showed zero interest in pressing all the buttons on the debit card keypad with one hand and holding my debit card in her other hand) and spelled our last name to the pharmacy assistant and waited for her to find all three hanging bags, remove all three containers of medication and side effect inserts and place them into paper pharmacy bags, I did NOT look at the $100+ total and realize we were technically uninsured for another day until the new policy started up and we could order insurance cards with the new company my husband’s employer switched to. (Yeah, and I’ve never written a run-on sentence in my life…)

But if that all HAD happened, I wouldn’t have been so thrown off course that I started to leave the store, forgetting all about the diaper…again. No, I went straight back to the restroom and changed that diaper and put Siena back in the pants she was wearing when I carried her in. There is — absolutely — no way that I was reminded of that diaper halfway to the exit doors when I heard the tinkling sound of urine falling on my boot. No way had I let a diaper get so soggy that it couldn’t hold a drop more, and spilled through her pants and down a few feet to my boot. And no way did I go buy baby wipes and a pair of Valentine’s Day pants, change the diaper, and carry a pair of wet pants out of the store in a shopping bag.

No, I’m way too good of a mother for ANY of that to have happened. I don’t know why you’d possibly think there’s any other reason for my daughter to be dressed in a pink flowery top and pink heart pants.

Oh, and did I mention we are now having all our prescriptions sent to the grocery store?