squid.

this one goes out to a certain special nursing mama. i hope it entertains you. and it has nothing to do with squid.

ben helped clear the table. when i went into the kitchen to finish cleaning up (hence all the crumbs) this fella greeted me. it made me smile.

today me and the boys went grocery shopping. i tend to avoid shopping for way too long, and then do a really big shop. it's not a good habit. i avoid shopping for a lot of reasons but today i was really motivated for some reason. we started at aldi (which i prefer to call aldis) and since we were out of pretty much everything, i didn't even bother to make a list. ben, being his charming self, always brings an added element to shopping. once, when he was close to max's age, a woman told him, "you are the ambassador of happiness!" because he would catch someone's eye and then smile his biggest, most cheerful smile until they smiled back.

max's added element is that he wants to eat. he's figured out how tasty chips are, thanks to daddy, and was determined to get the can of pringles. he would start begging and grabbing before he even finished the chip he had in hand. and yes, i feed my kids while we shop. by the time we checked out, bagged up, and loaded out, i felt like i had gone to an aerobics class.

on the way home we stopped at dillon's (which for a really long time i thought was dillions. i don't know why.) we got a coveted race car cart so ben was thrilled. i got really excited in an uber-nerdy way because kroger now has a white whole wheat flour for something like $2.45 instead of the king arthur which is almost twice that. i don't really understand this magic, but am looking forward to working with it. never did i think i would see the day when i got excited about flour. honestly, in the first year of our marriage, i don't think i went through a single bag of flour.

other than the flour, this is what really made my day: as i loaded my many bags of flour onto the check out belt i took note of the checker. i always analyse the checkers at stores. instead of the dillons polo, he had a white oxford on, black rimmed glasses, and some flair. nothing all that odd. he just didn't seem like the normal checker type. something about him struck me as different, like he really belonged at borders or starbucks or something. i noticed that one of his flairs was for air force one-available on videocassette today. or in 1996. so i mused that i liked his flair and he told me how he'd found it at an antique store. i told him it reminded me of how tim used to try to pack on as much flair to his walmart smock as possible. (smock-what a lame word.) then, i noticed, taped to the check writing stand, there was a piece of paper that read, "for what movie did joan crawford win her first oscar? flip over for answer." i asked if he wrote it, and he said he does them to get through the day. i, of course, had to check the answer-"mildred pierce" by the way, which he highly recommended. i told him that he had totally made my day with his quirky flair and trivia and he said i made his day, cause most people roll their eyes and give him weird looks. me and matthew the dillons checker built quite the relationship in our short interaction.

yah, it was a lot more amusing in person. written out, it's pretty weak. but i tried.

after dinner, ben pushed max around in this box for awhile. max loved it, although the pics really don't do it justice.

these pics reaffirm what all good parents already know-a good box is better than any toy you can buy. give your kids a sibling and a new box every once in a while, and you're set. it's the simple things.