Rain, Muffins, and Store Phobia

Being a mom of two little kids, I am learning to choose my battles.
These battles have nothing to do with training or discipline involving the kids. My discipline methods are pretty cut and dry right now. I'm talking about the going out in public battles.

You know that Mom in the store who is pushing around a full cart with two kids in it and one of those kids is screaming and throwing her raisins and shoes everywhere?

And that Mom in the library who is trying to hide between the shelves while the baby in her carrier is fussing and her toddler is pulling all the books off the shelves faster than she can put them back on?

And that Mom at the restaurant who's kid just threw her cup and fork on the floor?

And the Mom at the park who's kid is yelling "SNACK! SNACK! SNACK! MAY I PLEASE HAVE A SSNNAAAAAAAACK????????" and the Mom forgot the snack at home and then the kid falls apart....?

Yep. I am that Mom.
I wish I wasn't. I wish two-year-olds could think and reason and control their emotions, but they can't. So I train constantly, pray a LOT, and hope that one day, maybe I will have the kid who's behavior people are impressed by. I mean, I can always dream, right?

With that being said, I pick and choose my public appearances carefully. This works for me, because I am an introvert anyway, and would rather be at home alone almost all of the time. And if I'm completely honest with myself, I have a slight phobia of stores. Really. But sometimes it is absolutely necessary to leave the nest. And gathering food is one of those necessary times and reasons.

Grocery shopping.

I don't really know why I put it off so much. Maybe it's because it feels like too much effort to get both kids in the car, then out of the car, then into the grocery cart (where I run through the store throwing things into my cart and feeding Lexi raisins to keep her calm and sitting down), through the isles where I politely fend off all of the rather strange people at Aldi who are in love with my blond and blue-eyed girls (they are a novelty in my hood), and then bag all the groceries myself and then get the kids out of the cart and back in the car and then out of the car again and into the house and then back and forth to the garage and up and down our really scary and dangerously steep staircase over and over until all the groceries are in the house. And then I try to unload the groceries and put them away as fast as I can while Lexi "helps" by opening up all the pasta boxes (you know how this ends) and Lyla is crying to be fed. Hmmm. No wonder I'm not jumping for joy to go shopping. And you wonder why so many Moms are in therapy.

So this past week, with Lexi and Eric both sick and unable to eat due to basically having something similar to chicken pox in their throats (seriously disgusting and very painful), there was no reason to shop. There were peanut butter M&Ms in the freezer, pita and fresh hummus in the fridge, and plenty of cheese. Unfortunately, some people think that we also need vegetables to survive, so I had planned to go to the store today (in all reality it was because the M&Ms were gone and I was kind of craving a big fresh salad). But of course, because I love shopping so much, it somehow never got worked into our schedule of doing nothing.

Lexi was hungry at dinner time (this always seems to happen). With not a fresh veggie in sight, but lots of overripe peaches and bananas, we decided to make muffins. I browsed the internet a bit and came across this gem of a recipe that I feel I have to share in case you also have lots and lots of peaches and bananas and no vegetables and a hungry toddler. Believe me, it can happen. So while we listened to the rain pattering on our windows this evening, we ate these incredibly delicious whole wheat banana and peach muffins with cheese sticks on the side and some vanilla yogurt for dessert. (This is by no means a food blog, but if you know me, you know that I love to eat healthy real foods and this recipe is a winner. For those interested, I cut the oil in half and used an egg since I'm not vegan. I should actually rephrase that and say that I love to eat healthy real foods when I have food in my house.... Which will be tomorrow. I promise.)

I didn't make it to the store, but I did have fun making muffins with Lexi and singing "Do you know the Muffin Man" over and over and over and over while we made them. Plus, every once in a while I think it's kind of fun to let her think we just ate cake for dinner.