Never Will I Ever

I have to make this quick because we are Screen Fasting this week (well, these four days) and, when you make your ten year old abstain from all things "media-related," you better believe he will watch you like a hawk at the first sight of a smartphone.  Or an iPad.  Or a laptop.  The kid wouldn't even cut me a break to look up the Wednesday penny item at Publix.  (But I outsmarted him and I sneaked my phone into the bathroom and locked the door.  Then I hid it in my armpit when I came out in case he was waiting for me, which he totally was.)  At any rate, I caught him doing this earlier today, so this screen-free thing must be doing him a little bit of good.

Your eyes do not deceive you.  That's a book and sunshine.  I love it.  (Not to brag or anything, but he's finished 5 books in the past 4 days.  Because he "doesn't have anything better to do."  It sounds to me like he has found his "something better.")

Anyway, time crunch, since I'm defying my own screen ban.  I just wanted to say that I have said a lot of nevers in my day that have turned around and become my reality.

I will never live in the South.
I will never have more than two kids.
I will never be a stay-at-home mom.
I will never homeschool.

Funny, right?

Well, how about...

I will never be the mom who drags her five kids to the closest Starbucks on May 6th for a half-priced Happy Hour Frappacino with a two year old who has no shoes but plenty of spaghetti sauce all over her shirt, a four year old wearing a long turquoise and green floral skirt with a hot pink and orange ruffle tank top, a seven year old wearing normal clothes but with hot pink water shoes on her feet and a pair of wireless headphones from the minivan's DVD player draped around her neck.

I will never be the mom who lets her kids go out in public without brushing their hair first. 

Surely I will never be the mom who doesn't even notice the unkempt hair and food-stained/mismatched/out-of-season/random attire until we have walked all the way into the Starbucks-inside-of-Kroger.

And I will never be the mom who lets the two year old chug a frappacino just to keep her quiet and prevent her bare-footed self from catapulting her body out of the cart while we wait what feels like hours for the other two drinks we ordered.

Except that I am.

Know what else I am?

The mom who looked at all of them with complete and total embarrassment for 0.3 seconds before I laughed right out loud and decided it just doesn't matter.

(Besides if I looked in the mirror at myself before we left, I'd have noticed that the only things that matched on me were the sties on my top right eyelid and my bottom left eyelid.  And my hair was not good either, because, let's face it...it never is.)

So that's the story.  We looked like homeschoolers.

I'm looking forward to finding out which "never" I break next.

Maybe we'll get a cat.

(Ha!  NEVER.)

And just for fun - some pictures of the kids...since I'm already breaking the rules.

Have a blessed weekend, all.