Click here for official contest rules.

Looking for cinematic inspiration? Check out these video webisodes. A truly odd couple exchanges quirky dialogue and will inspire you to submit your own video for a chance to win!

Stay sensible, cereal shoppers: buy a bag of the great tasting Malt-O-Meal® cereal. They taste great; are kind to the budget, are offered with 75% less packaging* than boxed cereal brands, not to mention fun!

Watch this quirky duo make sense out of cereal packaging!

*75% less packaging based on the net weight of empty consumer packaging per pound of cereal delivered. Even when their box size is smaller, the net weight of their box and empty inner bag is still greater than the net weight of the larger Malt-O-Meal® bag when empty.

All those months of getting up early, getting the kids ready for school and helping them with their homework have come an end.  Yep, I’m talking about your kids getting out of school for the Summer.

If you are anything like me you might have mixed feelings about what’s happening around your house right now. After all, there are definitely some perks to having our children in school all day. If you are one of those parents having mixed feelings about Summer Break…. get over it. Here are some reasons to get excited about your Children’s Summer Break.

Catch up on a little Sleep

( image by viralbus)

Jump in a Pool with the Kids

(image by hoyasmeg)

Plenty of Time for Family Game Time

(image by Scott Ableman)

Roast Some Marshmallows and Make S’mores

(image by kretyen)

Build an Elaborate Sand Castle

(image by guy schmidt)

Fun Car Trips

(image by Kevron)

Go on a Camping Trip Together

(image by Lars Plougmann)

Have a Water Fight

(image by Dan Zen)

This is just a little over a handful of fun ideas to keep you excited about your Children’s Summer Break. Surely, you can think of some more. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood was from summer time. Grab your kids and get started making tons of Summertime Family Memories. It will time for them to head back to school before you know it!

When it comes to the environment and taking care of it I think I help out in an average way. I recycle cans, plastic and paper; I turn water off when brushing my teeth; I use aluminum reusable water bottles; I even run around the house turning off the lights. But, is that enough? Probably not.

On April 22nd its Earth Day. Earth Day is a day to help spread awareness about the environment and what we humans can do to protect the Earth. This is the Day that I vow to do better…. to do my part to ensure a healthy and sustainable planet for all of us. I am certainly not doing enough. But this, starting today, will change.

Earth has given me and my family so much. And, unfortunately up until now I think I have been taking much of what Earth has provided us for granted. No more…. it stops now.

My Vow to Earth on Earth Day

I love my Earth and Earth has been generous to my family. Earth provides the air we breath and the wonderful land my children play on. It feeds us and keeps on giving. But, without our part will the Earth as we know it be here for our children’s children? The thought makes me shudder. It has to be…. so I am changing my ways. How? Through many of the following Earth Day Activities that I will continue even once Earth Day has long passed.

Earth Day Activities

Plant a Garden

Not only is gardening fun for kids and the entire family, it is also a wonderful way to help the environment. Planting a garden is a terrific way to celebrate Earth Day!! We have already started our new garden earlier this month and we are loving it!!

How Planting a Garden Helps the Environment

Planting a garden is your way of helping limit the amount of fruits and vegetables that are shipped in from far away.

Plant a Tree

This is one of the Earth Day Activities that I’m most excited about taking part in with my family. Planting a Tree in your yard is something that not only will the Earth love, but you will enjoy the Tree every day you look at it. After all, it was a family Earth Day Project planted with love. It doesn’t get much better than that.

How Planting a Tree Helps the Environment

Trees help our environment in quite a few wonderful ways.

• Trees offer us oxygen
• Trees provide habitat for birds and other wildlife.
• Reduce ozone levels in urban areas

Just think, with one tree you plant you will be helping the environment in three ways. And, this is not just on Earth day, but every day.

Composting

Composting is another new activity I will be starting this Earth Day. I have never composted, but from what I understand it is very easy and an amazing way to help our Earth. Composting is taking your kitchen scraps and instead of throwing them out you put them in your garden. It is supposed to help your garden grow beautifully and like I said…. we just started our garden, so this is exactly what we need.

How does Composting Help the Environment

Composting is an all natural alternative to chemical fertilizers. The nutrients in compost support the microorganisms in the soil. Another words, the soil eats it right up and makes it the proper environment for our vegetables and plants to grow at its best.

Purchase Items with Less Packaging

Our landfills are quickly filling up. And, much of it is from the materials that the items we purchase are packaged in. So, many of these items have needless packaging… it is very upsetting.

Malt-O-Meal has bagged the box. They package their delicious cereal in just a bag instead of a bag and a box. What does this mean? It means Malt-O-Meal’s resealable bag results in 75% less consumer waste. And, my kids think they are YUMMY!!!

How does Less Packaging help the Environment

It means less garbage in our landfill which are quickly filling up.

Other Earth Day Projects

Just as important as the above four Earth Day Activities here are some other items I will be enforcing this Earth Day.

• Putting night lights on a timer - My little ones need night lights, but they don’t need to be on 24/7. Timers will ensure that the night lights are off during daytime hours.
• Be more aware of what I’m throwing away – There are so many items that can be recycled and I’m positive that I’m throwing things away that I shouldn’t be. I am vowing to be more aware and to read-up on what I should be recycling.
• Trash can become Treasures with Crafts – I had no idea all the awesome items you can make from things that I normally would throw away. Did you know that you could make secret storage boxes made from recycled books??? How Awesome is that?! There are tons of treasures you could make from recycled crafts.
• Start using environmentally safe cleaning products - There are tons of environmentally safe cleaning products out there now-a-days. Or, I could even make my very own homemade environmentally safe cleaning products. Either way, what I use will not harm my family or the environment.
• Being more aware how much bath water I use on the little ones – My little ones need their tubbies, but certainly they can manage on a little less water.
• Start hanging clothes out to dry…. great to do in this gorgeous Spring weather. - I do at least 2 loads of laundry a day. With just a little act of hanging these clothes out to dry on nice days I could save the environment a great deal of stress. I’m actually looking forward to this one…. I think it could be very relaxing.
• Start using reusable grocery bags. – This is an easy switch. I see that my grocery store sells these reusable grocery bags. I can simply keep them in my car and grab them every time I shop. Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeazy.

This is a hefty list, but I feel my Earth deserves my help. Earth has given me so much and I’m prepared to do my part to give back. The above are my Vows to Earth and I’m going to work hard on each….. not just on Earth Day, but every day. Would you join me?

Top image by aussiegall

What’s a Twitter Party, you ask? Find out more about these fast-paced, fun online parties by clicking HERE!

We’re inviting everyone who uses Twitter to join us for an open discussion about fighting hunger in America. We’re excited to offer this unique opportunity to talk about, share & discover new ways that we can all make a difference in the lives of people in need. Prizes will be given away all hour. Each person to RSVP for this online event will receive a coupon!

• What: @MaltOMealCereal is having a Twitter Party!
• When: February 15th at 9M Eastern Standard Time (8PM CST)
• Who to Follow: @MaltOMealCereal and our generous co-hosts, @Delightful_Toni & @Chaotic_Barb.
• How to keep up: The hashtag to follow & use for this party will be: #maltomeal

CLICK HERE FOR PARTY DETAILS!

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We live in rural North Carolina.

My husband and I have nine children, with our tenth scheduled to appear in March. With a family this size, we certainly get some interesting questions from folks. I’ll try and answer some of those here, as well as give you a look inside at our daily lives.

MP Godfrey
Team Malt-O-Meal

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I will never understand the fashions that kids are into these days.  For example, my daughter…wears socks on her arms.  They look like leg warmers with a notch cut out for her thumb.  Arm socks!

I was too young for leg warmers when you wore them on your legs.  And somehow I’ve been bypassed again and the kids wear them on their arms now.  I’m feeling a little ripped off here!

Ok, not really.

I like to give her a hard time about the arm socks.  We joke about them, yet she still wears them.  Oh well, I don’t really care…I just don’t get it.

What really gets me are these hairstyles where the hair hangs right in your face, in your eyes.  When I was that age I used gallons of hairspray to keep my hair as high as I could, as stiff as I could.  It

could rain and my hair wouldn’t fall.  There was absolutely nothing natural about my hair.

Eighteen years ago I had bangs that were ceiling high while the rest of my hair was pretty flat.  I wore pants that were folded over in front and then rolled up (pegged).  I wore shirts that were two or

three sizes too big.  Leg warmers were something you seen in old movies…and made fun of.

Today the kid’s hair is flat all over, hanging in their face, their pants and shirts are tight.   Leg warmers are now worn on the arms.

I know my daughter (who is 13) would KILL me if I posted a picture of her.  She’ll probably get mad for me even mentioning her in this article, but hey…I’m the Mom, what I say, goes.

But to justify this article (in her eyes, hopefully), I’ll post a picture of me…when I was her age.  To show her how ridiculous I looked eighteen years ago.  Not saying she looks ridiculous, but eighteen

years from now she may think differently. –Then maybe she’ll really laugh about the arm socks.

Fairy Blog Mother, 1991

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My mother is a heavyweight mother. By this I mean she’s always been there – one eye on us, one eye on the pot bubbling on the cooker. She was a stay-at-home mum for most of my childhood, with a brief spell as a working mother when I was a ‘tween’. She cooked 98% of meals in our home and did most of the household chores, though as soon as my brother and I were old enough, she roped us into this task. She was the ‘bad’ cop, the one who shouted, who doled out the punishments, and the one who chased us round the dining-room table to tickle us and cuddle us.

My mother and my son.

I’m sure by today’s standards her methods of discipline would be severely frowned on, and in some places, no doubt, she would have been locked up for child cruelty. But this was back in the 80s and 90s, in Hong Kong – a place where people still smack their children’s bottom in public without people batting an eyelid.

First, a word about my background so readers can understand the context of what I talk about. I am the product of a bi-cultural marriage – East (Hong Kong Chinese) meets West (British : English, Irish and Scottish). This was in the 70s, when Hong Kong was very much a British colony and the British ruled it with the desperate fervor of the last (almost) abandoned outpost. There were football (soccer) clubs and cricket clubs in place of country clubs, and few Chinese were admitted as members. My childhood was a heady mix of hanging out by the club pool or going on company junks (the company boat used for senior employees to impress clients ) with my parents, or going to the wet market with my mother, or visiting my Chinese relations in the most densely packed part of the world – Mong Kok. My father’s job meant I had a privileged upbringing – going to a private school and living in a large, airy 4 bedroom flat in the expensive part of Hong Kong. This sat oddly when I visited my grandmother and uncle’s family, who were squeezed into a tiny 2-bedroom flat above a market, just big enough to allow people standing room when we came over. And yet, nothing was said about, and just taken as a part of life. Chinese people are immensely pragmatic, and perhaps it was just felt that my mother had done well for herself and ‘good for her’.

Hong Kong Skyline

For us it was second nature, and we assumed most kids grew up the way we did. But I guess my mother had more foresight than most, and saw how other kids of a similar background were being raised by the amah (the domestic helper) while parents worked or played all day long. She made us go to the wet market with her, a place we hated, at the time, for its smells and grime and rawness. We saw how chickens were chosen while alive, and then taken round back and dispatched, cleaned and plucked. The same with fish. It always grossed us out, but we grew up with a far stronger connection to our food than most kids. Food fussiness was not tolerated well under my mum’s roof. My brother was once served the exact same dish for breakfast, that he had turned his nose up the previous dinner. It was the last time he messed around with his food. As soon as we were old enough, we had to do chores, even for the brief time that we had an amah to help us, because my mother thought there was no excuse in not knowing how to clean up after yourselves (and everyone else). My favorite was always helping her prepare dinner. I graduated from washing vegetables and rice to chopping, dicing, slicing and mincing before most kids knew how to dress themselves. My brother and I took great pride in making our parents tea for breakfast in bed at the age of 6.

Chinese Banquet Dinner, Hong Kong

Words meant little in our household. “I love you” was rarely said but often shown. Food was our strongest conduit. I could tell when we had displeased our mother if she regularly served fish (which I hated) or one of her ‘medicinal’ soups that looked and tasted like brackish water. When we were in her good books, it was:

• Stir-fried garlic snake beans,
• Green carrot soup,
• Pork and mushroom stew… all the dishes we loved.

I still remember coming home from school at lunch when I was five. There was always a plate of sandwiches, a cup of milk and a little chocolate Club bar waiting for me, under a napkin so it wouldn’t dry out, which my mother would insist I eat as soon as I came in the door, while telling her about my day.

She was harsh with her criticism, letting us know straight away if we were doing things wrong. When I was 14, I smart-mouthed her in front of the relations at a big Chinese banquet reunion. She picked up a chopstick and hurled it across the table at me, smacking me right in the forehead. No one blinked. Even today I can see her trying to bite her tongue, as she watches me cook or parent my two-year-old, knowing that she’s itching to tell me how to do it. Sometimes it slips out before she can stop herself – ‘Ai Ya! Is this how I raised you? What kind of Chinese cook are you? This is not Chinese cooking! What will your husband say? Ai Ya!”.

She also had her own “secret, Chinese mother ways” of not letting us eat bad things like Coke, or hamburgers, or sweets, or making us eat food that was good (like fish). The biggest whopper was pointing out a man on the street who had a neck brace on (presumably for whiplash) and saying ‘You see?! This is what happens if you don’t eat fish! Your throat swells up BIG and then you can’t eat! Better eat fish now…”. Or another time, “Don’t drink any Coke, it excites your glands. Make you lu-lu (crazy)”.

3rd Birthday Party!

With hindsight, I see how hard it must have been for my mother, juggling East and West, entertaining Dad’s colleagues on their junk trips, or cooking Chinese banquets, being a kind of trophy wife then running back to Mong Kok to spend time with her brother and mother in their tiny flat with 5 people crammed in. All this while simultaneously raising two kids in two cultures, helping them find their feet and their independence. When my Por-por (grandma) passed away a few years ago, my mother had spent three or four years by her side watching her decline into dementia and finally slip away, frail and fragile as a feather. At the time, my parents were going through a difficult divorce after being married for 30 years. She wobbled badly, but never crumbled. I can only conclude that she has a will of iron and a diamond-hard core.

Being back under her roof now, with my son is both a blessing and a curse. She is exactly the same with him as she was with us… Uncompromising, determined, loving, raucous. He now knows where to put his dirty clothes, loves to sweep the floor, helps his Por Por to load and unload the washing machine and hang up clothes, and is generally a little messenger boy between rooms. They adore each other. She is his absolute best friend. And yet, with me it’s still the eagle eye, and the odd “Why are you doing it that way? My way is better!”

So I listen, watch, observe quietly and remember how she kept us in line, how she showed us love. I too have mastered her thousand yard stare – better known as the Eye of Death, for its laser beam intensity. I practiced it to perfection as a teacher, and now only have to release a fraction of it, to scare my kid into picking up his toys. If I turn out half as good and tough as my mother, I will be happy in the knowledge that my son has been raised well.

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When I was asked to guest blog for M-O-M, I was absolutely gobsmacked and almost fell off my chair. Who’d have thought that my little blog would garner any attention? I feel very much a minnow in the blog world, compared to the big-hitters of Skip to My Lou, Smitten Kitchen, Bakerella, Steamy Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, to name just a few. How to stand out amongst the crowd of giants? Because, to be honest, there really isn’t anything special about me or my blog. I’m just an average Joanne, struggling to make things work – food, love, life and motherhood. But after reading M-O-M’s blog, I realize that I’m in great company – the women featured are all average Joannes making sense of their world. The things they blog about are universal – food, love, life and motherhood. That’s what makes it so relevant to me, keeps me hooked. How many times I’ve read something and laughed out loud, thinking ‘Hey, me too!’ or ‘Wait a minute! I thought I was the only one!’. My guest blog is hopefully one that resonates with all of you too. Enjoy!

Warm Regards,

Shal
Jasmine & Ginger Blog
www.jasmineandginger.blogspot.com

One Hot Mom

To Need or Not to Need

Hot, not, or indifferent, I know being a mom is never easy. We all want to be the best parents we can be, and can often equate being a good mom with sacrificing our own wants and needs when it comes to things like shopping and dressing with more than just the basics in mind. I’ve met some Moms who feel like doing ANYTHING meant just for themselves is a thing of the past since they decided to have kids. It doesn’t have to be that way. Our needs as Moms are still as important as they were before we went domestic.

The Balancing Act

While it’s no small feat, we Mom’s manage to adjust our lifestyles to make it possible (and fun!) to take good care of our little ones amongst the usual chaos of everyday life. Adjustments, concessions, and the occasional ability to leap a tall building in a single bound are often necessary when you have a family, but there is no need to adjust your personal needs into obscurity. Even if most days you feel like you should be wearing a cape.

Priorities

If being a fashionable, hot mom isn’t the highest priority in your life, you don’t need to feel selfish if you want to keep it somewhere on your lengthy list of things to do. Personally, I try to keep in mind that the better I look, the better I feel. The better I feel, the happier I am. Everyone around me seems to reap the benefits of this notion.
Don’t get me wrong! I realize that sweats and old t-shirts are usually the required attire in getting though life’s ups (vacuuming cobwebs off ceilings) and downs (scrubbing dirty toilets) but your Everyday Diva can still weigh in on what she wears when the serious heavy lifting is finally at rest for the day.

Diva Do’s & Diva Don’ts

Even those of us who are lucky enough to have found a way around staying in our sweats to clean our homes all day every day, know that if it’s not one thing it’s another. You know what I’m getting at and trust me, like many others I struggle with the fact that my body doesn’t resemble in any way what it looked like before having my children.
I’ve been told that true beauty comes from within, and I agree with that 100%. But for those of us who are interested in making a bit more of a fashion statement, here are some basics to keep in mind while dressing the outside of your Inner Diva:

Do’s:

• Do look for well-fitting, age-appropriate attire that is comfortable to you.
• Do add a little color. Scared? Start small by matching a purse or belt with your shoes.

Don’ts:

• Don’t wear frumpy clothes. You know what they look like, and they are a big NO-no!
• Don’t wear baggy, saggy or raggy duds. (-the guilty among us know who we are, so let’s stop hiding in those overly-long, overly-loose, dated numbers.)

Dollars & Sense?

High-priced clothing is expensive. Personal style isn’t. Looking great in what you wear doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Finding clothes that look good on you is do-able even on a very limited budget. Some excellent stores to shop for exceptional fashion without breaking the bank are:

• TJMaxx or Marshallsstore where I found 3 fabulous budget friendly looks under $50.
• Kohls Department Stores have an awesome sales alert program and even better clearance prices.
• A.J.Wright a new store I recently discovered that has absolutely fantastic prices!

Read more on what I bought in The Domestic Diva archives:

1. Marhalls & TJMaxx :http://thedomesticdiva.org/blog/2009/06/08/monetary-monday-looking-fabulous-for-less-with-marshalls-and-tjmaxx/
2. Kohls: http://thedomesticdiva.org/blog/2009/05/18/monetary-monday-kohls-sales-alerts/
3. A.J. Wright: http://thedomesticdiva.org/blog/category/shopping-for-less-at-tjmaxx-and-marshalls/

Even a local Thrift Store or Goodwill can be a great place to snag some fashion finds!

http://thedomesticdiva.org/blog/2009/03/01/get-thrifty-finds-of-the-week/

Good Luck and Happy Shopping!

The Domestic Diva
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This great fashion-forward Mom post was generously provided by Heather Batts, a.k.a The Domestic Diva. Heather is a mom turned professional blogger who dishes daily about products she loves, v-logs on being a tech-savvy diva, as well as offers, how-to tips and money saving tricks for our domesticated lives.

You can read more by the Domesic Diva at: http://www.thedomesticdiva.org
Follow her on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thedomesticdiva
Or check out her YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/thedomesticdiva

Best,

MP Godfrey
& Team Malt-O-Meal

About a year ago, the Henderson’s returned from Russia with two VERY tiny, new additions to their family in-tow. Many of us know what a challenge it can be to get our picky eaters to finish what we put on their plates. This family had an entirely different version of the “picky-eater” challenge ahead of them with trying to feed two children who were severely underweight, undersized, and unfamiliar with Western food.

I must further preface this story for the readers who don’t already know that Malt-O-Meal Hot Wheat® tastes really good when prepared using the recipe on the box. Increasing the caloric content usually isn’t necessary to get adequate nutrition and flavor benefits. It’s fortified with vitamins and minerals including iron and has been approved by WIC program dietitians and kid nutrition experts in 33 States. (However, I still add a serving fruit to mine, but I’m a somewhat of a rebel.)

This blog entry from www.clutteredpantry.com was written by Mr. Henderson about 7 months ago:

” It’s been 5 months since we brought home our two new, adorable, tiny daughters from eastern Siberia. We’re so unbelievably happy to have them in our lives, and we’re even more happy that these two sisters get to stay together. That day in October, when we finally began our 18 hours of air travel home with them, they were happy, but quite small (hardly on the US growth charts) and, as they only spoke Russian, difficult to anticipate with regard to what they’d be able, or willing, to eat. Once we got home to Chicago we kind of looked at each other, looked at them, and considered how we’d reach our goals for helping them to pack on healthy weight just as quickly as possible.

Our biggest “problem” was their intense desire for fresh fruits and vegetables. We had to bribe them with broccoli and peas to get them to eat the foods that most toddlers beg for.
In 5 months there has been a lot of experimenting with menus of course, and a lot of success and failure along the way (I think it’s like this for every parent), except when it comes to breakfast. Breakfast is always a success.

We’re convinced we’ve been able to get our girls to grow so quickly (they’ve each added 6cm and more than 30% weight gain!) because their most important meal of the day, breakfast, is one they always completely and happily finish and, amazingly, one that’s even great for them.
I’m talking about Malt-O-Meal, which is what my wife grew up eating. I was a Cream Of Wheat® kid, never had Malt-O-Meal at all, but my wife was from a Malt-O-Meal family, and she insisted from Day 1 that we try it. Home Run!!

Malt-O-Meal with:

• Butter
• Brown sugar
• Blueberries

(the girls’ nickname for it, “mush!”, which they evolved from their Russian “kash”) is THE signature meal in our home. In the beginning, to help get the weight-gain ball rolling, we’d make it with whole milk, and even added a little heavy cream. Once their cheeks starting getting chubby, we went back to the regular recipe. But from the start and even now, these tiny girls are putting away a whole serving of Malt-O-Meal each and every morning. Here we are, 5 months in to our parenting journey (AND the first morning of pre-primary school for our oldest girl!) looking at empty bowls, smiling, healthy, faces and full, happy tummies…theirs and our! Thanks Malt-O-Meal!! ”

I recently contacted Mr. Henderson for an update on the tiny”Russian dolls”, and this is what he had to tell us:

Happy Father's Day!

As for present day…

It’s been 10 months now that we completed our 2nd trip and brought them them home, and they continue to grow at a phenomenal rate; of course Malt-O-Meal continues to play a daily role. Each girl is about 10cm taller than they were when we first brought them home, and they’re up almost 40% in weight. The funny thing is, they’re so active that the added weight is almost all muscle. Never have I seen such triceps on a 2 year old!

One of the questions we get a lot is, do they still speak any Russian? The older one did have quite a vocabulary when we first met. We learned enough Russian to communicate with them, and to know if they were telling us if they were hungry, thirsty, had to go potty, etc., but after a few months home they both started picking up English very well. After about 5 months they didn’t know any Russian words any more (nor did they recognize pictures of their once-beloved main caretaker from their orphanage…the woman with whom they had a big farewell cry when we all left).

It’s as though they decided; okay, that stuff was all then when we were waiting for our mommy and daddy to come get us. This is now, and that chapter has closed. We do know that as they grow, and as they learn of, and comprehend their origins, they’ll want to learn Russian again. We can’t wait.

But right now, two little girls (as American as can be) are trying to wake up from a nap. I hear their two little voices on the monitor are already lobbying for a visit to the playground.

The photo is from Father’s Day 2009…..my first ever as a Dad myself!

I could not be more thrilled to hear the great news about these little darlings!

You can read more about the Henderson family and these “Tiny Russian Dolls” at www.clutteredpantry.com.

All the best,

MP Godfrey

Team Malt-O-Meal

The kid who is screeching like a banshee in public, running around like a madman and his mother chasing him going Sssshhhh! and Stop that!.  Then they think it’s funny that you’re chasing them so they run faster and farther away, crawl under something where you are unable to reach them.  Then when you do manage to drag them out from wherever, it’s chaos all over again.

I’m the Mom that other people look at with deep sympathy because they’ve been there (and are thanking their lucky stars that those days are over…or maybe they just left their kid at home?).  Or roll their eyes and give me that look.  You know THAT look that they give to THAT Mom with THAT kid.

The terrible twos really are terrible and have really been a challenge for me.  I really DON’T KNOW what to do to make my kid calm down.  I don’t know what to do to make him sit still and be good while in public.

Short of never (never!) taking him out in public again, what do I do?

• I chase him.
• I “whisper yell” at him. You all know what I’m talking about…whisper yelling. Admit it, you’ve done it.
• I bribe him. That never works either, but I always try. Just in case. I’d buy him a freakin’ pony if he just sat in the cart and didn’t yell “MINE!” to everything we passed.

That’s all I can do.  I assure you if I grab him and force him to do something he doesn’t want he will let out a deafening, eardrum-piercing shriek that will make dogs howl, babies cry and ambulances and police cars show up expecting the worst.  In fact, I’m pretty sure all of you, wherever you are, have heard my kid scream before.

And I won’t leave the store without my purchases…because that just means I have to come back and there is a 50% chance I’d have to bring him with me.  Nope.  No way.  Not gonna’ do it. We all have to suffer now and then, so all of you giving me the stink-eye are just going have to deal with it.

• If you see me at the store and I’m crying…you know why.

• If you see me at a restaurant on my hands and knees “whisper yelling”…you know why.

• If you find a screeching, shoeless toddler running around…it’s probably my kid….Thank you for retuning to my general vicinity.

Every grocery trip, restaurant visit and car ride ends with one (me) or both of us in tears…and shoeless (him).

Deep sigh. This too shall pass…hopefully.
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The time, care, and good humor given to this blog post was generously donated by our favorite “Fairy Blog Mother,” Annette Burke. Visit the Fairy Blog Mother blog for great giveaways, honest product reviews and other things that may make you question her sanity.  Enjoy!

Best,

MPGodfrey & Team Malt-O-Meal