Such a Rip-off!

So as it turns out, the Britax carseat uber-awesome deal that I found on Sunday, was a complete and utter rip-off.

Apparently Target "mispriced" the item. And instead of it being on sale for $42.99 it should have been $279.99. Umm, who do you have typing in these prices, because those numbers aren't similar at all? And what makes this doubly frustrating for me was that I had ordered another item that was also on sale and THAT item was also mispriced. What exactly are the odds of that? 2 out of 3 items that I order are cancelled because somebody inputted an incorrect price.

To say that I'm frustrated with Target is an understatement and I can promise you that I'm one of many, many women in the same boat. The email that they finally sent stating the mistake was borderline rude. You know, as if I somehow made the pricing error myself.

And they have yet to offer any sort of compensation for their mistake. Now, I'm not someone who goes around demanding what people and companies are going to do for me when they've "done me wrong", but I do feel that in this case, some sort of discount or free shipping coupon would be warranted in appeasing their customers. For one reason, Target is currently losing money. The last quarter they saw a drop in their profits. For another reason, we're upon the Christmas shopping season. Do they really want to leave a bad taste in the mouths of an overwhelming number of Mommas who will be doing the majority of the Christmas shopping?

I will keep you posted on the outcome of this. I've already exchanged a couple of (very polite) emails with a Customer Service Rep over there. I'm curious to see what happens.

And now I'm stuck with a train that I randomly threw into my order just because. That's what I get for being an impulsive shopper. But maybe it will work under my tree and it will be worth some of this hassle.

Eavesdropping

I overheard a conversation today that shook me harder than I've been shaken in awhile.

Keith, Garrett, and I went to eat supper tonight at a pizza place in a small town (not our small town, but one not too far from here). We were the only ones in the dining room until about halfway through our meal and then in walked 3 teenaged girls. (Garrett called one of them Christie-my youngest sister's name, but that's beside the point.) I wasn't intending to listen to their conversation but they were talking so loudly that it was hard not to hear them. To make this a little more understandable I'll give them nicknames: bleach blonde girl, brunette girl, and regular blonde girl.

Bleach blonde: (out of the blue) I'm pregnant.
Brunette: What? No way, you're joking, seriously?
Regular blonde: She's serious.
Brunette: How far along are you?
Bleach: 5 weeks.
Brunette: Do your parents know?
Bleach: Yeah, they know.
Brunette: I thought I was pregnant a few months ago, but I went to the doctor and he said I wasn't.

As much as I would like to say that this conversation was spoken very seriously and with a lot of emotion, that wasn't the case. The girls acted as if they were discussing the weather. Like it was no big deal that one was pregnant and the other recently had a pregnancy scare. Oh, and did I mention these girls were probably all of 17 years old? 17!! What do we know at 17? Not much, certainly not enough to be getting pregnant and talking flippantly about it. Trust me, I'm not naive, I do realize that there are girls out there who are much younger than 17 and having babies, teenage pregnancy is not a new occurance, I realize this. What just completely boggles my mind is how nonchalant this conversation was. How these girls have not one single clue of the gravity of their situation. She holds the life of a child in her body and does not realize the rollercoaster that she's about to embark on.

Pregnancy is hard, newborn babies are 1000 times harder, doing this all without a spouse has to be the hardest. And let's just say that she and the father were to get married before this baby is born (which I am wholeheartedly against in most situations...), marriage is really hard as well! I can't even imagine getting married and 2 to 5 months later having a baby, all at the very young age of 17. Talk about some major life changes! Keith and I were married for 3 years before Garrett was born. If it had been any less time, one of us probably would have murdered the other one during those early weeks/months of no sleep, constant crying (me and Garrett), pretty much the death of our previous life of "married couple with no kids". It was a chaotic and scary time, but obviously we made it through and are better for it. However we were in a committed relationship that wasn't based on a child. What kind of chance do these young teen mothers have?

I'm sure you're wondering how exactly this conversation shook me so hard. I think it was because I was actually hearing real, live teenagers discussing what would have been a gigantic fear of mine (had I been sexually active before getting married, which I wasn't) and acting as if it was no big deal. 10 years ago when I was in high school I do not remember any girls in our school getting pregnant. Maybe they did and I wasn't aware of it, but it certainly wasn't part of the locker room conversations if things like this were going on. I'm sure that if these girls existed in my high school they kept it quiet and private as best as possible. They did not go around spreading the news to the diners at the local pizza parlor.

And what will teenagers be like 10 years from now? This is my biggest fear because 10 years from this August, my baby boy will officially become a teenager. What will high school be like for him? Will 50% of the girls be pregnant, will 99.99% of the kids be sexually active? How many will have STD's? It's so scary to think that I will voluntarily hand over my child to possibly be in and among these situations. With these thoughts it certainly makes homeschooling very appealing. I won't do it unless it's absolutely necessary, but it makes it appealing.

When we got into the truck to head home after our pizza, I immediately asked Keith if he had heard what I heard. He hadn't, so I filled him in. He was just as shocked as I was. Our first question was why the father of this baby (and the other possible baby that brunette girl mentioned) was never discussed. I think if I was a teen and a fellow teen told me she was pregnant, one of my first questions would be who the father was. Of course they could possibly both have steady boyfriends, but even then I would want to know what the boyfriend's response was when he heard that the other girl was pregnant. But the father was never even mentioned. Keith and I immediately began discussing what we could do as parents to somehow help prevent this situation from ever being a reality in our household 15 years from now. It's just so scary and I pray that being involved in church and being around other Christian teens will help to keep our kids strong.

Our future generations need our prayers now more than ever.

Police, Walmart, and Garrett (but not at the same time)

OK, so I'm retracting my previous statement that we don't live in the 'hood. Because apparently, we do.

This morning when Keith left for work, he called to let me know that at the end of our road (less than a mile from our house), two cops appeared to be looking for something along the sides of the road. What they were looking for, we have no idea. I let that information go in one ear and out the other and proceeded with my morning activities before heading out the door to go on our weekly trip to Walmart. As I was very obviously speeding down our road, I came upon 3 cops walking along the side of the road still looking for something. I immediately slowed way down without being too obvious about it, they never even gave me a second look. We all know it's serious when that happens because cops are always on the lookout to hand out tickets when they can (I kid, Brad!-for those who don't know, my brother Brad is currently in the police academy in Austin. He won't be one of those annoying cops who pull us over for doing "nothing".) :) When I reached the end of the road I saw 4 more cops, one with a dog from their K-9 unit on a leash. I stopped to let them cross the road and waved at them, I want to be on their good side whenever possible. Parked at the end of our road were 2 cop cars, a police van, an unmarked Tahoe, and a black car (I don't know if it was an official cop car, but it was definitely with the rest of them.)

So Garrett and I went on to Walmart, had a meltdown in the checkout, listened to the cashier tell me that I shouldn't be buying the 4-pack of tuna cans because they're cheaper to buy individually (umm, would your manager want to hear you trying to sell me cheaper stuff?), picked up McDonald's (Steve, that sign has been corrected, with a black marker. Just thought I would let you know that someone at that McDonald's reads your blog.) :), and headed home.

This time I was ready for the cops and they did not disappoint. 3 of the group had metal detectors and they had made their way to within visual distance of my house. You have no idea how hard it was to keep myself from stopping, rolling down the window and saying "Could you maybe fill me in on what's going on? I'm a stay at home mom to a 2 year old and I would really like to know if I need to keep my phone speed-dialed to 911 and attach a holster to my belt." But I didn't. I just knew that if I stopped, the entire group would probably jump onto my vehicle with guns drawn, so I kept my speedometer at 15 mph and crept my way home. With Garrett shouting, "Come on, Momma!" Yes, his Momma has a lead foot and he knows it.

Throughout the day I've had periodic phone calls from Keith wanting to know if he should come home, was there any activity, had there been a shoot out in our front yard, go peek out the window and tell me what you see, etc. We've run the gamut of possible things that these cops are looking for, but since seeing the metal detectors we decided that it would probably have to be a gun. Or one of the cops lost his car keys.

So how many times should you see the cops in your neighborhood before deciding to put your house up for sale?

I can't end with this story, I feel like I've talked entirely too much about the illegal activities of people in my neighborhood, so I thought I would share a little about what Garrett has been up to lately.

Yesterday morning on the way to church Garrett said "Hey you guys!" to us. Not a sentence he had used before. I immediately looked at Keith and said "I'm sorry." He said, "What for?". "For not being a "true" Texan and saying "y'all" thus resulting in Garrett saying "you guys" like a "yankee" (I hate that word by the way. Also how many more times could I use quotes?)." He said he didn't care. Though he shouldn't because Garrett regularly walks around wearing his cowboy boots (on the wrong feet) and his cowboy hat saying "howdy". Of course he's pretending to be Woody from Toy Story, who isn't a true cowboy since he doesn't carry a gun, but an empty holster.

Garrett has decided that he must drink out of a regular cup, no more sippy cups for him. Well, Momma says otherwise because my son is a camel and must drink gallons of water and milk every day, which means that a cup is readily available at all times. Can you just imagine how often spills would occur if he was drinking from a regular cup all the time? So I've limited his lidless cup usage to mealtimes at the table. And the cup is only about one-third of the way full. So far he hasn't spilled a drop, not even dribbling any down his chin, and I do that regularly, so I think he's on his way to being a big boy with no more sippy cups.

We regularly find him bottomless now, no pants, no diaper, no socks. He's attempting to go potty constantly. So far absolutely nothing has gone into the toilet, but he loves stripping and for some reason feels it's necessary to sit on the toilet with no socks on, he's even tried to take off his shirt several times with Keith and I telling him over and over that it's ok for him to keep his shirt on while he sits on the toilet. I'm glad he's interested, but until something productive comes out of these strip teases, I would prefer he keep his clothes on.

For the last two Saturday nights, different Harry Potter movies have come on TV. Garrett loves them and gets so upset when it's time for him to go to bed because typically we're only about an hour into the movie. I'm not sure what the appeal of these movies is to him, but I find it funny that he loves them so much. Last Saturday I promised him that I would rent the movies and we would watch them to the end so he could see what happens. I'm not sure if a 2 year old really understands that, but he did stop griping and went to bed.

He still refuses to eat vegetables so I'm trying to broaden my usual vegetable purchases. Today I bought some cans of olives and I served Garrett a few of them with his chicken at supper. He thought they were grapes, so he tried one. When he first put one in his mouth he shivered and put it down, but he ended up eating about 3 of them. I don't know how nutritional olives are, but they are a vegetable, right? Also, is it bad for me to continue to call them grapes in order to encourage him to eat them? I promise that he was the one who intially called them grapes, but I took that ball and ran all the way to the end zone with it in order to get him to eat SOMETHING at supper. He is so picky! Unless someone tells me otherwise, we will be having "grapes" regularly.

Not Speechless

Quick update on my previous blog. Our next door neighbor came over and filled us in on what he knew about the other neighbors that I mentioned. The husband has been depressed, on anti-depressants and also drinking hard liquor. Various things have happened to result in his wife calling the police to take him into rehab on Wednesday. Please pray for them.

I'm Speechless

Tonight I witnessed something that I have honestly never seen outside of the movies.

Earlier this evening, Garrett and I were hanging out and watching cartoons. I glanced out my front door and noticed that several cars were in my neighbor’s driveway. Out of part-nosiness/part-neighbor concern, I peeked out my window for a closer look. There were two police cars in their driveway and an ambulance at the curb. First, let me preface this by saying that these are people that none of you would know (I’m mostly saying this for the locals.) Let me also say that these neighbors have become friends of our’s over the past 5 years that we’ve lived here. We’ve babysat their kids periodically, we’ve all gone out to dinner together and had each other over at different times, we have access to each other’s houses in order to let deliveries in at different times, the wife and I used to workout together every day, and Keith and the husband help each other out with moving heavy objects or borrowing tools, etc. While we’re not super close friends, we do look out for each other and help each other out when needed. They have always been on my heart as a family that I would love to have come to our church and we have invited them at different times, but never want to be pushy and just "live the life" as best we can.

On with the story. Not too long after I had been watching out the window, the EMT’s came out and left without bringing anyone outside of the house. So that left the two police officers. I went back into the living room and periodically peeked out the window. About 15 minutes later, I saw that the husband was outside with the cops and they were talking in the driveway. Nothing seemed to be happening, the husband had his hands in his pockets and occasionally would rub his head or his face, but other than that they were all talking. I assumed that maybe something happened to one of their kids, but it wasn’t serious enough to require going to the hospital. Both cops stepped toward the husband and all of the sudden he reached up and pushed them both off of him, the cops slammed the husband on the trunk, cuffed him and put him in the cop car. The whole time I was covering my mouth saying "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh". I just could NOT believe what I was seeing. If it was a random person, I wouldn’t think too much about it, other than being concerned that they were in my neighborhood, but this is a man that we thought we knew! I’m so upset for their family. I hope nothing serious happened, but obviously it was something bad enough for him to be arrested. We honestly have no clue what in the world would have happened. All I ask is that you all would please pray for them. I know that they’re a good family and I really hope that they will be able to work everything out and get their lives together. I really feel for the kids, they are in first grade and fifth grade and they were at home when all of this happened. I’m at a loss as to what to do now. I don’t want to call and appear to be nosy, but I also want to let the wife know that we’re praying for them and are here if they need us. Oh and for those of you who have never been to my house and don’t know anything about my neighborhood, I promise you it’s a nice place to live. I’ve never seen the police at anybody’s house ever before and we actually have 3 cops who live out here. Just thought I would throw that out there in case some of you are worried that I live in the ’hood. :)