On Eating Plastic and Santa

Tate and I went to the grocery store yesterday. I was not in the mood to drive myself insane so I left Nora at home with Eric. Tate was in a very odd mood, and by odd, I mean "Look at that kid...what a freak" type of odd. He was holding onto my coupons (or "Tate money", according to him) for me since he feels like he's helping when he does that, and I wasn't paying him too much attention, because as long as he's actually sitting and not throwing canned goods out of the cart at old people, I pretty much let him be.

We get up to the checkout counter and I get the coupons from Tate and discover that they're all soggy and gummy. He'd been chewing the corners off of them. I figure, who needs corners? and hand them to the 17 year old cashier dude. He flipped his hair out of his eyes, looked at the coupons and then at me and said "Uh...I think your kid was eating paper." I replied "Well, better paper than boogers, right?" He looked at me like I was demented but took them gingerly from me between two fingers, making sure not to touch any part that had teeth marks on them. Then he got to the plastic bag of hamburger buns, and we both saw that Tate had been going to town on that as well. The plastic was shredded in some parts, and each bun had chunks ripped out of them. Apparently my child is half rat. Cashier dude eyes the buns nervously, looked at me again and said, "Um, is he like really hungry or something?" I was thisclose from answering "Well, yeah, but the plastic and paper is enough to hold him til we get home and he can start in on that cardboard box I've been saving for him. He'll eat it right next to his sister who's still working on her Sears catalog."

Then we went into the liquor store next to the grocery store. I know, it sounds like we're always in the liquor store. We're not, it's just where a lot of memorable stuff happens, apparently. Tate was no longer in the cart since it was jammed full of bags and there was no room for us, so he had free rein to sprint away from me and basically give me a heart attack, seeing him twirling dizzily in the aisle among 5000 breakable bottles of wine, rum, and tequila. His new favorite liquor store game is "Let's Clink Two Bottles Together as Hard as We Can and See if They Break!". Then at the checkout he kept pressing his face up to the counter and going "Muuaaaaaaa". I soon realized that this is the sound he makes when licking germ-infested counters at liqour stores. I had to tuck him under one arm and push the cart with the other. I was about to break open the box of wine right there, put my mouth under the spout and just pour it in.

So we took the kids to see Santa today at my mothers group's annual Christmas party. They loved him. See?

Now, when we look at Santa, we see this:

Apparently, when my kids look at Santa, they see this:

Who knew?

They eventually did calm down though. To prove we didn't scar our kids for life, here's them later on in the morning.

Pretending he's in a line-up. Good practice for later in life

Eating jingle bells and bows.

Successful day, overall. Got the kids nice and freaked out, Nora's actually taking a nap to try and escape the image of Killer Santa in her mind, Eric and Tate went to the zoo, and we two adults are going out tonight! No kids! We may never come back!