Maybe I've Become THAT Kind of Mom

When you're on the outside looking in, it's really easy to judge. As a teenager, I remember seeing mothers make last minute, unplanned purchases for their children and I thought "I'm not ever going to be that kind of mom."

I have a confession to make. I have been to six McDonald's within the past four days. The reason? The toys. My sweet little guy took a shining to their current toy. I don't even have any idea what they are or what cartoon they are from. They are some kind of alien toy, but Peter calls them his monsters (though he can't pronounce "monster," so it sounds more like "mahmont").

He got the first toy on Saturday. It was an orange monster. He slept with it on Saturday night and brought it to church on Sunday. I put it in the diaper bag so that he wouldn't lose it in nursery and then promptly forgot about it. Last night, Peter was asking for his monster and I realized I had no idea where it was. He was so sad to go to bed without it. Jeremiah was able to backtrack in his mind and remember where we had put it and I was able to give Peter his monster again this morning.

I had to go to the bank today so I told Peter that we could get him another Happy Meal and he could get another monster. He somehow remembered that there were red and blue ones and he had his heart set on a red and blue monster. When I got to the drive-through, I asked what colors they had available. They said they only had orange and green. I decided to get two happy meals (one hamburger and one chicken nuggets) because I never know what Peter will be in the mood to eat and I figured I could eat the kid's meal that he didn't eat or I could give it to him for lunch the next day (reheated in the microwave). So, they gave me one orange and one green alien aka monster. That brought Pete's tally to three monsters.

I figured we could give it another go later this week and try to get the red and/or blue alien/monster at that time.

After dinner (of which, Peter only ate his salad--sassy, picky-eater boy of mine), I asked Peter if he wanted to go for a walk with me and Jonathan (Jeremiah has started school again and he had class tonight). Peter said "no." This really surprised me because Peter loves to go on walks. I said "Well, what do you want to do?" He said "Burber, ries, blue and red mahmont." I said "You want to go for a drive and get another burger and fries and a monster?" He said "Yeah. Blue and red mahmont." I thought "well, what the heck. It will be a decent way to pass the time. We'll just go for a little drive, get a Happy Meal, and maybe go to the park."

So, we embarked on our journey, unaware of the adventure to follow. I went to another McDonald's than the one I had gone to earlier today (since I knew they only had orange and green aliens). I promptly asked them what colors they had. The McDonald's employee told me they only had yellow. I thought "well, at least that's a color Peter doesn't have. He'll be excited about that and then we can try in a few days for the blue and/or red alien." I paid, got the Happy Meal and drove away...only to discover that he had given me a GREEN alien. Blasted color blind McDonald's employee! When Peter discovered it wasn't yellow, but a green alien that he already had, he was sooooo sad. He was crying "yeyow mahmont" over and over. I had already opened the toy, so I couldn't return it and the employee there already told me that they only had the one color--even though it was actually green and not yellow. So, I didn't think I would have any luck getting another color of alien there.

Let me clarify something. My guy Peter is super passionate. He can throw tantrums with the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) of the two-year-olds. But this wasn't a tantrum. It was sincere sadness and disappointment. I felt so bad about it. I had prepared him and told him that there might not be a new color of monster, but he heard the guy over the intercom say there were yellow monsters and when he didn't get a yellow monster, he was crushed. So, I decided to try another McDonald's. I decided to drive by my Mom's house because there are three McDonald's in the vicinity and if one failed, surely one of the others would come through for me.

Now, to refresh the tally: we currently have two orange and two green "mahmonts," or four total.

The next McDonald's I went to (technically, the fourth McDonald's, or the third for that day), I asked what colors of toys they had. They only had orange and green too. I asked if that would be the case for all of the McDonald's. The employee there very helpfully explained that each box has two different toys in it and then when that box is empty, they get another which has different toys in it. She said that the colors available at each McDonald's would simply depend on if they had emptied out one box and moved on to the next. So, basically a game of chance. I drove away without any new monsters since they didn't have the colors that Pete wanted. Peter was again heartbroken. He literally seemed to have lost hope of ever having a red or blue monster. He was just so sad.

So, I ventured to the next McDonalds (#5 total, #4 for the day). I was really worried that the story would be the same though. I didn't want to continually break Peter's heart by disappointing him over and over. However, they said they had yellow and gray aliens. Woohoo! I said "Could I please have one yellow and one gray alien in the Happy Meals? And I don't want orange or green because my son already has those" and they assured me that I would get one yellow and one gray alien and that I absolutely wouldn't get orange or green. When I got the actual food, I asked the girl what color of toy was in the Happy Meal and she helpfully said "I have no idea." They have such a great attention to detail and attend to the needs of their customers so well! When I checked (before driving away), the first alien was indeed gray. The second one was red! I thought "what is the deal with these guys? Did they never learn their basic colors?" However, I was happy because they were two colors Peter didn't have and I knew he would be excited (which, of course, he was).

That takes our tally to: 2 orange, 2 green, 1 gray, and 1 red alien/monster. Or 6 total.

Peter was blissfully happy in the back seat and I was about to head home when I thought "what the hey. I might as well check that last McDonald's (#6 total, #5 for the day). It's on my way home anyway and if they don't have blue, then we can check again in a few days." I again went through the drill and asked what color of toys they had. Unbelievably, the employee there told me they had blue and yellow. As you can imagine, I didn't quite believe this after all of the wrong colors I had been told, so I said "are you sure?" He said "Yes. I just checked myself." So, I got two more Happy Meals and hesitantly checked them to discover that this employee was NOT color blind and Peter did indeed receive one yellow and one blue alien.

That takes our final tally to: 2 orange, 2 green, 1 gray, 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue alien/monster. Or 8 total. Whew!

Peter was over the moon once we acquired the blue alien and he was pleased that we got a yellow one too. When we got inside, he proudly displayed all of his monsters on the coffee table and began to count them. He's really great at counting. We counted together. When we finished counting and he discovered he had eight monsters, he said "nine?" Ha ha! You will remember from a few posts ago that nine is Peter's favorite number. In this case, he wasn't trying to greedily finagle more monsters, nine is just his lucky number. His number "happy place," if you will. I think he really would have liked to have nine monsters over eight, but he didn't press the matter. He was satisfied and content with his monsters--a boy at peace.

Peter ate one Happy Meal for lunch and one for dinner (I ate one of them for my lunch too). So, of the seven Happy Meals I bought today, three were eaten and four are in the fridge! I chose milk and juice boxes for the drinks because I knew I could use them later. I also chose apples for most of the Happy Meals because I knew I could refrigerate those too. As for the hamburgers, they actually heat up pretty well in the microwave--at least Peter doesn't seem to notice much of a difference (or if he does, he doesn't care).

Peter is currently asleep in his bed with all of his mahmont's asleep at the foot of his bed. Yup, all eight of them.

My reflections regarding today's adventure:

1. Do I think what I did was ridiculous? Yes! It was absolutely ridiculous! I can't believe I did it! I'll have to be careful in the future about telling Peter about the toy selection.
   
2. Did I purchase a ridiculous amount of fast food? Yes! Jeremiah told me he would eat some of it for lunch tomorrow so that it wouldn't go to waste. Besides that, one of his favorite things to do is to pile fries on top of the kids hamburgers and eat them all together. He reheated some fries and a burger that Peter didn't eat awhile back and he said that it actually did heat up pretty well.
   
3. Am I embarrassed? You betcha! This was a super by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of thing to do and I just spent $24 for 8 toys and some food that Peter may or may not eat. That is just crazy.
4. Am I glad I did it? You know what? I am. I would do it again. Peter was so heartbroken. He wasn't being spoiled or bratty. He was sincerely disappointed. I just couldn't say no to that. And once he got all of his monsters, he was overjoyed. But you can also bet, that I repeated a NUMBER of times on the drive home that he now had ALL of the monsters that there were and that there weren't any more colors to be had!
5. Will I buy another Happy Meal so that Peter can have 9 monsters? I don't know. But I just might! But not for awhile, at least! And you can bet that they won't be orange or green monsters!
6. What do I think about the service at McDonald's? It totally depends on the employee. Some of them were helpful and accurate and others were NOT!
   
7. Do I feel silly because I shared this experience with all of you? Yes siree! But I also thought it was too funny not to share and I have been chuckling about it all night.
8. Am I always this indulgent and do I spoil my kids? No! I promise! I actually do set limits! Cross my heart!
9. Has anyone else out there done something crazy like this for their kids? I sure hope so! I hope I'm not the only one pulling these kinds of crazy shenanigans! (Did you notice that I have nine questions here? Peter's magic number!).
   

So, yes, perhaps I have become that kind of mom. When you haven't been in a certain situation, it's so easy to say "I would never do this..." or "I would never do that..." But never say never. If you haven't been in that situation, you don't know what you would do!

But thinking back on it, I remember my Mom taking us around to different places just so we could get specific kid's meal toys. Did she go to the same crazy lengths that I did tonight? I don't think so (at least, not that I can recall). Did she always do it? No, of course not. But she did it when it really mattered to us. It made us feel special. It made us feel like she understood us and valued our wants and needs. She was able to step into our shoes and remember what it felt like to be a child. She was that kind of mom.

Well, I'm not exactly that kind of mom quite yet. I have a long way to go. But I think I'm getting there. At least I'm on my way. I just have to keep trying. I can only hope that someday I really can become the kind of mom that my Mom was. Because she was (and still is) the best.

Above: Peter with his "mahmonts." Notice Jonathan happily sucking on his fist in the background. By the way, Jonathan was a sweetheart the entire time. He cooed happily in his carseat all the while. He likes to go for drives. He only got fussy towards the end when the sun was in his eyes and he was getting tired and hungry. But once we got home, I cuddled and fed him and he was right as rain again in no time! Oh, and he's so nice to cuddle! Soft and squishy and happy! He just laughs and smiles. What a sweetheart.