I was in Jewel the other day with the three kids. Fun, right? As if grabbing a couple staple items with 3 kids isn't difficult enough, they embarrass me.
So we are walking through the aisles and I see a woman, about my age, with bright pink hair. This is not the first time I see her and think nothing of her. Trinity and Everett thought it was the greatest thing and makes a spectacle out of it screaming "that girl has pink hair!" I shush them and go on my way.
I get to the milk aisle and an 8 year old girl, give or take, with her grandma are there. The girl says to me, "your kids are being silly!" (darn, I thought I was keeping them contained!) I respond with, "I know, they do that sometimes." The grandma says something to her like, "you are silly sometimes too."
The little girl then tells me, "your kids are mean!" The grandma immediately covers the girl's mouth and walks away. I wonder to myself, "why are my kids mean??" I then see pink hair girl talking to the grandma and little girl and realize they are all related. The little girl is pink hair's daughter and the grandma is pink hair's mom. Pink hair loudly says in my direction (sarcastically), "if it is because of my pink hair, I really don't care!" Then she walks away.
I sit there for a second processing it all and then realize that she thinks we are making fun of her and I let me kids do it. I am now appalled. Now, I know they were being loud but making fun of the hair is totally not what they were doing. In fact, they think it was super cool. I give them a mini lesson in "blurting out people's appearances is not appropriate." I then am thankful it was someone with pink hair and not an obese person or a little person or someone who would be REALLY offended by their loud observations. I realize I need to make it right and teach them a lesson.
(Now, I am *very* introverted with strangers and the LAST thing I wanted to do was find pink hair and give her my side of the story but I knew that this moment needed to make an impression on my children so they do not do it again.)
I tell Trinity and Everett they need to apologize. They both say no. Trinity is now too shy to talk even though 5 minutes before she was telling the entire store her private thoughts. I make her. I find pink hair and demand an apology from the kids. They say sorry. I explain how they like pink hair and in no way were we trying to be rude. In no way would I allow my kid's to purposely hurt someone's feeling and in no way would I try to ruin anyone's day. She was very understanding and thankful we said something.
I left the store feeling better and prayed it never happens again. I hope the family left feeling like all was well in the world of expressive, and cool, hair.
It has been a favorite book of Trinity's for quite some time. It is about a girl who *loves* the color pink and eventually turns pink from eating too many pink cupcakes. Our favorite theater in Chicago, The Emerald City Theater, put on a production of the book. This is our 4th or 5th play at this theater and this was my favorite. Wizard of Oz is playing now and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory look like hits early next year. Go, take the kids! If Everett can sit still for an hour, any child can.
He quickly perked up.
Trinity loved her Hello Kitty umbrella. Everett got a spiderman one. Her favorite present was her puppy pillow pet, make-up set and a couple new DS games.
Everett *loves* his "Woody with a string." All he wanted was a woody doll that talked and a cow pillow pet. He got both.
We hosted Christmas dinner for 20. I made a 24lb. turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, nutmeg gnocchi and dessert. Family brought potato salad, green bean casserole, bread. Eddie made a beef tenderloin on the grill along with veggies. mmmmmm.
Trinity and I made our annual Christmas tree cake for Jesus. This year it was pistachio flavored.
The window theme this year was "Yes, Virginia." It was about a girl who wasn't sure if she believed in Santa. Very cute. 
This was Everett's favorite decoration of the night, a simple, plastic nutcracker. He is obsessed with them this year. We have obtained quite a random collection this season.
Not sure if this was Trinity's favorite or her must-see. She has been *terrified* of the Grinch for about 2 years. She cannot listen to the song (she asks *every* time we turn on Christmas music if it is going to come on), look at a picture, or hear his name. She calls him "The G!" However, a neighbor down the street had a Grinch blow-up lawn decoration last year and she was always intrigued to go by it to "see if she was still scared of him." It resulted in a lot of bedtime prayers for good dreams and frequent middle-of-the-night-scared-crying. This year the neighbor did not put it up but she has been on the hunt for one. We found one tonight. She stared at it for 5 minutes without speaking. Not sure what tonight will hold.
