Afternoon Snack

Our Pretty Princess! What can I say? She loves mud! And yes, she is eating that!! Dirt, mud, moss, you name it. And it's not just a passing curiosity. As much as I try to keep her out of it, as soon as she is outside she runs straight for it. And she puts it all over herself, in her hair, throws it in the air and lets it come raining down on her. She scoops up handfuls of it and eats it! Is it because she has brothers? She does follow everything Jacob and Matthew do...On the other hand, Olivia has an obsession with bugs! So maybe it's just a kid thing?

I blame it on the fact that I have boys...

Someone pointed out to me that no one in our family has ever had a broken bone...NO ONE! Not on my side, not on John's and in the same summer, we've had two.

So now there's guilt!! Is it because of my lack of attentiveness? I don't just let my children run, I'm the opposite actually. More of a hover-er. I was right there with them, both times! So I'll just blame it on the fact that I have boys! :) Most of my family, and John's only have a few boys "intersprinkled" with all the girls. So we made up for the lack of boys by having boys. And boys play hard! (Boy, that was a lot of mention of boys! :) He he!

Anyway, Jacob broke both his forearm bones in his left arm, and Olivia broke her pinkie finger on her left hand. Thank goodness it was the left hand on both of them! But I have learned a few things this summer: trying to keep children with casts clean in the summer is a BIG pain in the butt! Three year olds have a hard time being potty trained with a giant cast, and only one person should jump on a trampoline at a time. Maybe Uncle Ric had some wisdom there. :)

Here's hoping for a cast free summer next year!

Bare with me...

I am about to vent. Something I have wanted to vent about for a long time. Something that most of you will probably fiercely disagree with. Dun dun dun: WALMART. For those of you who don't know, we have children with various allergies: animals, nuts, milk, dust, pollen, peanuts, fruits, melons, and now possibly eggs. My cousin lovingly refers to our kids as "the bubble children". It's not quite that bad, it could be much worse. It's just life for us, and something you deal with. Enter the part about Walmart. As most of us know, this store is known to have 2 cashiers and 47 people in line. Why is that? Because they (sadly) almost always have the cheapest prices on non food items: laundry soap, diapers, cleaning supplies. They don't bother to put more cashiers to work at the registers, because they know people will wait in line there anyway for the prices. I think Walmart has some of the least courteous, unfriendly, unhelpful, downright rude employees ever, and that's coming from someone who worked there at one time! 

So here is my venting, Walmart claims to be so "globally /economically /environmentally friendly", yet they cut out the small vendors because they only want to deal with distributors who are well known: Fisher Price, Coleman, Disney, Post...you know them. That's why every kid in the world has the exact same toys, etc. as every other kid because Walmart (and most of the big name stores) only carry the big names - even if these smaller companies are pulling in big sales.


Walmart is looking out for Walmart. Period. A couple of examples here: when I was pregnant with our last baby, I stopped by the infamous store's pharmacy to ask a question about a minor / over the counter medicine question. I don't even remember what it was, something like which headache medicine could I take while pregnant. Well their pharmacist told me that he could not give me any advice and that I needed to seek the advice of my doctor. Bull-o-ney!! Now you may defend them and say that I should ask my doctor. Not about that!! I called my regular pharmacist from their store and he directed me to a perfectly safe, same thing my doctor would have said, medication. Walmart just doesn't want to get sued!

So here is my second complaint about them watching out for their own backsides. I mentioned the allergy situation we have in our family. Walmart not only doesn't carry a selection of somewhat allergy friendly products (whatever, to each his own), but they label EVERYTHING as though it had cross contamination of allergens in ALL of their products. Have you ever read the ingredients list on a gallon of Walmart milk? It says: contains milk (and whatever vitamins) and then the infamous disclaimer: May contain traces of wheat, fish, soy, tree nuts, peanuts, eggs...It depends on which plant the milk of the day came from as to which of the allergens will be listed.Seriously?! Did a peanut walk into your dairy? Do you have a chicken - therefore egg- conveyor belt along side the milking stands? I know the process milk goes through! I've been to my share of dairys.

You may be saying to yourself "Well that's nice of them to warn you." No it's not!! Anyone who reads labels as much as food allergy sufferers do can tell you that most stores put a disclaimer on legitimate products: bakery items, cereals, cookies and on and on. It's FDA regulated and guided on which products must say what. For example products manufactured in a facility that also processes "whatever" must state this. Products manufactured on equipment that also processes "whatever" must state that. Products that could have ended up with parts of a similar product such as plain M&Ms ending up with a peanut in them because they also make peanut ones, must state that.  For this we are thankful. It helps us to be vigilant, and careful and feel somewhat safe in the choices we make on diet. But Walmart puts it on everything! That way they can cover their butts at every step. They just don't want to take the time to accurately label. Not that I'm looking for a way to get some of my hard earned money back from Wally World. If a label says "may contain" any of the foods we can't have, then we won't be buying it. It's not worth the chance. It would be nice if they would accurately label their products instead of just covering their well padded wallets.

So there you go. Feel free to launch into me for my anti-walmartness. I've heard it before.