Why Did I Buy That?

I am not one to have a lot of buyer’s remorse. As a woman who literally rushes home from shopping trips to show Hubby Hawks how much I saved versus full price, (yes I have an affinity for Tuesday Morning and TJ Maxx), how could I possibly have buyer’s remorse? I am Mrs. Bargain Hunter, and if I regret a purchase, who cares? It was 80% off after all! I am actually saving money when I’m spending money! (Hubby is rolling his eyes at this moment.)

But in looking through pictures of the Hawklets recently, and at the toys, clothing, and surroundings of stuff in the photos, I started to ponder what drove me to purchase some of the more obscure items we own, and particularly those I select for the babes – you know, the things that you don’t research, compare, discuss, and belabor, like a refrigerator or a new car. The stuff you give a half-glance and throw in a cart while trying to keep two little boys from running off to another aisle or toppling over the side of the cart onto their heads.

Why did I choose those footed pajamas? Why those sippy cups? How did we end up with that particular toy car? Why are we so loyal to Tide?

It’s not that I have a problem with any of these things. I just wonder how they won me over -- how they beat out the other options to make it into my cart and eventually into my household, into our routine. How they wooed my psyche.

What drives my purchase decisions? I spend my professional days researching and strategizing around how moms decide to buy certain brands at certain stores at certain prices – the why, when, where, and how of it all. What moves me? And particularly, when I’m not paying attention?

Research shows word of mom is critical in this equation. But thanks to both anecdotal and academic data, I know it’s just that – an equation. One piece of the pie just isn’t going to satisfy me. I am no robot mom under the control of another mom, emulating everything she does or says.

But yet I am still under some amount of control by the especially savvy marketers who know that as a mom, I am more likely to pick up the thing that makes me feel like I am making the right decision for my child, the right decision for our budget, that is the right color and has intriguing merchandising, that I’ve seen other moms in my circle using or talking about, that is reinforced by some level of advertising, that has claims I can believe in thanks to appropriate PR (and give or take other various factors depending on the brand or product).

The things all around us in the Hawks household have somehow gotten it right – that mom equation. They won out over alternative options. They attracted my mommy hand, plucking them off the shelf, tossing them into our cart, bringing them into our home, into our routine.

And maybe – hopefully – they even gave me a new opportunity to show Hubby how much money I saved by buying them!

Another First Checked Off the List...in the ER

I am a mom of boys. As the sweet, precious young child I was, I didn’t step foot in a hospital ER until I was 18 and my shin met the jagged edge of a glass shelf in the sweet, precious gift shop where I worked in high school. I was a good girl who played with dolls and castles and didn’t cause trouble.

But now I have two boys. They like to jump off couches, slide down stairs, tackle each other (and inanimate objects) and generally test the limits of their teeny bodies. Already.

And now the older Hawklet has moved on to testing the limits of his internal organs. One day he’ll learn that ethical scientists don’t experiment on themselves.

Last night as Hubby and I were finishing dinner, my Hawklet, who had lost interest in food quickly into the meal, walked back into the kitchen from the toy room chewing on…something.

Problem: we don’t know what that something was. Was it plastic? Was it a button? Was it sharp? Was it a toy? Was it a battery? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. That’s all the response we got. This was all right after we had begged him to spit it out and he gulped and announced what later made the nurses and doctors chuckle:

“Now it’s in my belly!”

Oh dear. And while I might have assumed that it was likely something small and likely plastic and likely on its way to my little boy’s little bowels, soon to meet his diaper, the nagging thought of an article I read eons ago about a little boy dying after swallowing a tiny piece of plastic that had previously affixed a price tag to a piece of clothing overran my thoughts. The even-keeled professional on the other end of the NurseLine agreed.

“Since we don’t know what it was, I have to err on the safe side and say you should go to an ER and have him scanned. If it was something sharp it could tear ulcers in his stomach, and if it was a little battery, it will need to be extracted.”

Sweet. A few hours and several SpongeBob stickers later, we crossed “X-ray” off his list of firsts. Been there, done that. The diagnosis? We are good, erring-on-the-safe-side parents, and he is a curious little guy who probably swallowed a tiny piece of plastic that will make its appearance very soon.

This morning he tried to confess:

“Remember yesterday when I ate Reid’s car?”

Wordless Wednesday: Why You Probably Don't Want to Eat the Cookies at Mimi's House

Admissions

Today the talk at the office is all about Twilight, the series my 14-year old sister-in-law is also currently raving about. It’s apparently one of those admissions you make among friends and wait for someone to return the favor: “You read it? I do too!!” And vampire-love-story chatter ensues. Surprisingly, I don’t work with a bunch of tweens and teens so apparently there is something to be said for Twilight. My best friend, a mom of three herself, admitted her Twilight obsession to me a month ago and I could hear the disappointment in her voice when she realized I don’t have the same Edward crush so we couldn’t discuss. Because I don’t even know who Edward is, except for the large poster of his face now plastered on my sister-in-law's bedroom wall.

One day when I’m no longer in graduate school on the *side* of everything else, I look forward to reading books that weren’t required of me by someone else. Not sure that Twilight will make it on to my list, but I like the idea of being free to read a tween love story if I so choose, like the millions of Twilight-loving moms out there. Especially being a mom of boys. I probably don’t have a lot of Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins in my future as a mom of boys. Probably not even Judy Blume. Although my baby hawklet certainly does love playing with my old dolls, patting their backs and putting them in the old baby bed. Mom hasn’t gotten out the old My Little Ponies yet. (Hubby Hawks is making a note right now to find said Little Ponies and destroy them…)

I came across a couple old journals of mine as I was cleaning things out over the weekend - my attempt to do all the to-dos I’d been putting off before going back to work on Monday. Time stopped as I became enthralled with my old accounts of life in that searching stage between college and a “real” career. I’d forgotten that I really hated that time of life, when so much was out of my control. (“Shocking,” I can hear my mom groaning now, facetiously.) I was job hunting and diamond hunting at the same time. I wanted to marry Hubby Hawks so badly! And I couldn’t stand that the “when” was completely in his court.

I also wasn’t particularly eloquent in that stage. I read the journal thinking, “no one would read this if it was a blog.” Hopefully if you are a reader here, you’re not asking yourself why and wondering if there is something better on TV or if your yard needs to be mowed. I certainly don’t want to evoke yawns. Geez, this paragraph might have just done that.

Maybe I should start blogging about a vampire named Edward who falls in love with a human. Wait, that’s taken…how about a werewolf named Harry Potter who falls in love with a…

We Did It

This morning the Today Show actually made me smile. I am a loyal watcher (especially after Hubby convinced me that we HAD to have a TV in our remodeled master bath, to which I initially thought ‘absolutely not, what kind of people do you think we are,’ and then I realized that ‘yes, I like being those kind of people who watch TV in the shower’), but Ann Curry usually drives me batty, I often find myself questioning whether certain stories should really be classified as “news” and my eyes are constantly rolling at overdramatic packaged segments. But I still watch it daily. In the bathroom.

This morning the Today Show aired one of those cheesy overdramatic packaged segments with a “look back at 2008” and I realized two things: 1) being a Today Show talking head must be the best job in the world, and 2) even in light of the tumultuous year that was 2008, there were some highs in the midst of lows and mediums.

In the finality of a day like today, I can’t help but think about what it means to close a chapter that you can never re-open again. I remember being nine, waking up in my bed on the farm the day after fourth grade and being so sad at the thought that I would never get to experience fourth grade ever again in my life. It was done. I could never go back, never have any of the same fourth grade experiences, something I had never really considered before that day-after-fourth-grade moment. I would never sit in the same desk, in the same classroom, in front of a guy named Rocky Stone (that is not a joke). Like it or not, I had to move on.

I’ve been moving on ever since, rolling with the waves of life, through moments I wish would never end (rocking my peaceful baby in the quiet of a winter morning with no work nagging) and minutes that can’t tick by fast enough (watching inadequate nurses attempt to ‘find a vein’ in my screaming infant who may or may not have diabetes). And when the waters are calm and shallow enough that I can actually put my feet down and stand for a moment, I find myself looking around in wonder at the beauty of my surroundings. I realize that I am lucky enough to share my life with two of the most beautiful, wonderful babies that I could have ever hoped for. (Here I go making my own cheesy packaged segment. How annoyingly Ann Curry of me!)

Now, in the calm that is this “transition” time, I’m looking ahead. One hawklet is advising me that he will be three on his next birthday. He is headbanging and playing guitar and sleeping in when we let him. Oh dear God, he’s three going on 17. The other hawklet is gaining some vocabulary (“Elmo” today!) and picking fights with Big Brother between hugs. There is no doubt 2009 will be energetic, espresso powered, and I admit – stressful. Because that’s how we roll – we like to do 10 million things at once while working full time, getting graduate degrees and raising toddlers.

Another year. We did it. And here we go again…

Almost Conscious Thoughts

This morning I was up from 3:00 – 5:00 a.m. with my baby hawklet who was having trouble inhaling around all the green snot clogging his nostrils. Occasionally said snot likes to run down the pathway between his nose and upper lip and taunt us until we finally get a split second to swipe at it, perpetuating the raw redness congregating at his airways, but at night, it just likes to clog and be a bully, forcing the hawklet to learn how to breathe out of his mouth. Not as easy as you’d imagine.

In that lovely, wonderous window of pre-dawn bonding time, standing over his crib and rubbing his chest, I semi-consciously pondered my re-introduction to VapoRub as a mom. To clarify, I can actually only assume it’s a “re” introduction because I honestly don’t remember my mother ever applying VapoRub to my chest as a child. I know, my rural upbringing left me seriously deprived. But my babies love that gunk like I love my mocha. I’m sure they would drink it if they could (though they’d probably have to chew it rather than drink it, or perhaps spread it on some toast like jelly). In fact, it could be that my baby has replaced his binky addiction (yes, we gave it up cold turkey last week – Merry Christmas!) with a VapoRub addiction.

Sweet, sweet VapoRub. I’m adding you to my favorites list right alongside the drive-thru.

Conversations With a Two-Year-Old, vol. 2

Him (after plopping a ball cap on top of his head): “Now I’m a dude!”
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Him: “This is my belly but Papa calls this my gut.”
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Me: “What would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

Him: “Just a birthday cake I think.”
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Him (at the kitchen table): “Banana, you don’t talk, but we eat you.”