There was an old lady who lived in a shoe...

That's me. You know me. I'm the woman in line behind you at the post office or grocery store that has too many kids all ready (and dear God she is actually pregnant with another). Hello. It's nice to meet you too.

That was me, and is me, because even though my older children are TRYING to be helpful, they still can't manage to go get some bananas without skipping and making annoying noises on their way to do it.

Oh, then your son tucks his arms in his shirt and runs down the aisle saying "I have no arms! I have no arms." The problem is that you are too busy dealing with your two year old who is having a nuclear meltdown in the aisle because she can't get out of the cart to deal with his inexcusable behavior. The whole store stares at you like you just beat your child or something, but you can't beat her bottom, because you are in public. Then what would you look like?

So, now you are the pregnant lady, holding a two year old trying to push a shopping cart down the aisle while two others are in tow behind you. Hello, my name is Julie and I look like I live in a trailer.

Once this realization hits me, it is at this point that I now become the crying pregnant lady in the store, holding a two year old, with two others in tow behind her. Do I drop the cart and bail or keep on going?

Turns out that crying in front of your children is the best thing you can do to get them to behave. Maybe it is because you look so pathetic, they have no choice but to feel sorry for you. Thus I have now perfected the mom guilt trip. Cry until you make them behave. That will work.

Ok, so. I'm making a declaration. I REFUSE to go grocery shopping with children. No more. I will go alone in the evenings when Daddy is done working. I will no longer look like the crazed mother that has too many kids!

Why yes, I did swallow a watermelon.

Ok, so it's summer and the season for fresh fruit. I love to buy all the fruit, come home, wash it and put it in tupperware containers so I can munch when I please and all the work is done. I purchased a watermelon two weeks ago at the supermarket (part of my normal summer routine), came home and began chopping away at the thing.

I decided while chopping to take a little sample, and well, I could have just died and went to heaven. I could have SWORN that this was the sweetest best watermelon that I had tasted in my entire life.

So, let me paint you a picture of what this looks like. Me, barefoot and VERY pregnant in the kitchen with a butcher knife in one hand and a dripping piece of watermelon in the other hand. I'd cut a piece and put it away, then eat a piece, and so on and so on....i'm sure it was rather disgusting and unladylike looking me there with watermelon juice dripping down my chin and landing on my very big belly.

By the time the watermelon was finished and cut up, I didn't have as much in the container as I expected.

Three days later the watermelon was gone. My family griped for a few days that nobody else got any, but it's not possible is it? I didn't eat the whole thing did I?

Today was grocery day. Yes, I bought another one. My daughter moaned about how she "won't get any of this watermelon either because mom is going to eat it all!"

I noticed chopping it up today that I must have bought a much larger watermelon, because rather than one tupperware I had three. Then I came to a horrible realization. I ATE HALF the watermelon last time I cut it up. No wonder I didn't have as much as I expected.

So, when asked "are you pregnant or did you just swallow a watermelon?" I can just simply say "Yes".

Things I thought I'd never say.

When you become a parent you truly say things that you NEVER in a million years could picture yourself saying, things like "please don't lick the shopping cart handle," and "dear God he stuck something up his nose again..."  (emphasis on the AGAIN part).

Every time I turn around they are doing something so ridiculous, you look at them and shake your head in astonishment that they are yours, and could swear that they were raised by monkeys instead of civilized parents.

For example today we were at a restaurant and I looked over and my ten year old is shaving a crayon with a knife.  I look at her and just give her the "mom" look and say "Really? Can you please stop shaving the crayon with your knife."  I glance across the table and my two year old has taken her straw out of her drink, and is slurping Sprite directly from the table top to her mouth, lapping it up like a dog.  Where is her straw you ask?  She is using it to sip ranch dressing from a bowl.

Yes, these are my children.

Yesterday they tied a rope to a branch on our tree outside in a swing like fashion.  My husband and I watched from the kitchen window as my oldest decided to try and hang a plastic lawn chair from that very string as some kind of makeshift swing.  This is the point that my husband looks at me and says "so, do I call the ambulance now, or wait and see how this plays out?"

There you are again saying something you never thought you would say in a million years "kids, please don't hang the lawn chair from the tree and try to swing on it." 

Some of the top things I've said as a parent that I thought I'd never say:

• Stop chewing your toenails!
  
• Stop biting my feet!
  
• Honey I need the tweezers, he has a tick on his balls.
  
• Yes doctor he drank pool shock.
  
• No, the cashier at Walgreens is not the midget from Elf.  Please stop asking him that.
  
• Hold still while I pull the eye-shadow sponge out of your nose.
  
• You can NOT spank your friends on their butts while they are peeing at the urinal.
  
• Don't lick your sister!
  
• I found the penny in his poop!  We don't have to take him to the hospital!
  
• Stop playing with the toilet water!
  

Then of course my all time favorite "Please stop licking the shopping cart handle."  (I know I said this before but it's worthy of being mentioned twice.