After a week of whatever the heck virus kicked my 3-year-old's tush, I think Josie is finally on the way to good health.
Now Charlie has it. We're on day four of vomit, though she might have skipped a day and I just don't remember. Sleeping (if you can call it that) sitting up with a trash can next to your bed for your 2-year-old to puke into tends to blur time and days.
I'm hoping this isn't going to be the beginning of a repeat of Winter 2012-13.
I refuse to panic about this. We're back to popsicles, Pedialyte and watered down juice. Charlie refuses to eat solid food, I think more out of fear of how much it will hurt if she throws up again. At the very least, I need to try every trick in the book to get fluids into her.
But all this trying to get them healthy is exhausting, and I hate to complain about my babies because they can't help what's happening, so on Sunday the kids stayed home with the Boy and off to church I went. I had a pie fundraiser to help button up so we could start baking on Monday. And my spiritual cup needed a refill.
Oddly enough, the sermon was about complaining. What I took away from it was the naturalness to vent some of those frustrations we all have. It's true. Venting is cathartic. Talking about what bothers us opens the doors to healing and forgiveness. Right? While I do feel pretty crappy when I unload my problems on someone willing to listen, I feel better after I'm done. I try to be there for others when they need to unload.
With this idea of complaining in mind, I need to admit I enjoy participating in life's social experiments, often those that involve some unpleasant people, because I love people watching - I don't remember a time when I didn't have a thirst for knowledge when it comes to interpersonal communication and interaction. But I swear, I'm not one of those weirdos who sits in the subway watching people. Not yet, anyway.
However, the grocery store is just as interesting as any subway, but less creepy at night. Right before a big holiday is even more interesting.
I had to stop for bread and milk and coconut milk and steel cut oats and artichokes and ... never mind, that's not the point. The point is human nature. Hunting and gathering. The grocery store is like the suburban jungle, and right before Thanksgiving and Christmas it's fucking nuts.
We all know that.
But how many of us ever take the time to not be part of the chaos? I can't be the only person crazy enough to go to the grocery store during one of the busiest times of the year and just browse and meander while looking for the items on my list. Can I?
If you haven't done it, do it. Go alone. Get a cart, slow down a little, don't stare blankly at your list, smile at strangers, and for God's sake smile at the kids they've dragged along because we all know most of them do not find this to be an enjoyable experience. Help a frustrated fellow consumer.
I did.
Apparently my spiritual cup hadn't been filled quite enough in the church sanctuary and during coffee hour. It was close to the top, but when there are as many things I'm wrestling with in my personal life as there are right now - bills, trying to find money to get a few extra gifts for family, keeping up with the house and getting Josie to dance every week, never having time just for me ... when it gets like this, that spiritual cup needs to be filled to overflowing so there's some left in saucer for a little boost later on.
The grocery store is like a second sanctuary for me - and obviously not just in the "man, I'm a fat kid" kind of way. This is human nature, where men carry a list of items they need to gather for the coming feast and the women give their opinion of the wrong brand put in the cart. This is where the frustration of not finding the right size turkey leads to a lack of sensibility and a lashing out at the loved one trying to help.
This is where tears are close to the edge because you don't know how to work the contraption in bulk foods with the peanuts in it that you really want for whatever reason. The reason doesn't matter. She wanted them bad enough to look pained when she turned to me and asked, "Do you know how these things work?" as though those peanuts were the only thing in the world that mattered in that moment. And they did. I had no problem waiting to scoop my hazelnuts. Even with sick kids at home, I wasn't in a rush because they were in capable hands.
You see, when I get to go alone and take my time, I discover so much about food
and relationships, and my relationship with food. I stopped shopping so
much for "quick" meal items (aka: highly processed junk) in order to get our
family more on the right track to eating well, and I realized there's a
whole other world in the grocery store - ethnic ingredients in recipes I've set aside for fear I'll have to go to some specialty shop; amazing things like chia seeds I didn't know existed; and there are so many varieties of beer I have never tried.
Outside the realm of food, are the people ... the employees and the customers. These are people I likely will never see again (the customers, not the employees - I see them at least once a week), but the ones I interact with leave a mark.
Some compliment my babies and how well behaved they are. It makes me feel like I'm raising them well.
Others give a nod and "thank you" when I scoot out of the way because they are in more of a hurry than I am. I try to always say "you're welcome."
Even in this time of holiday craziness, I find myself wandering through the store filling my cup on the interactions of my fellow consumers hopeful I'm leaving a mark on them as well. And some day, maybe that couple who was pissed at one another because the list wasn't clear what brand to buy will find a way to rejoice in that experience and learn from the silliness that it truly was.
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