If you normally don’t read over at Milk and Cookies because you’re kind of bored by all the shopping talk, perhaps today will be your day: I’m talking about PLANTS! And also: the plant post CAME TO ME IN A DREAM! I dreamed I was writing it, and so then later, I….well, I wrote it. As you can see.

Or maybe plants are as boring to you as watching plants grow, in which case let’s get back to the shopping talk.

I had something unusual happen the other day: I went to a Target I’d never been to before, and…I didn’t enjoy it. I think they must not have been piping in the same life-restoring air the other Targets have, because it didn’t smell soothing. The walls were painted (or possibly stained) a too-dark shade of grey. The ceilings seemed lower, and the departments seemed smaller, and the music was depressing. The fluorescent lighting was too dim, and some of the lights were flickering. The employees seemed exhausted and beaten down, as if trapped in a twilight zone situation, working the same workday again and again. The clearance areas were sparse, and not very reduced. I felt weird and skittish, and then discouraged and plodding. I bought hardly anything: a pack of card stock (50% off), a 3-pack of Wonder Pets unders (30% off), and a package of lightbulbs (rang up higher than expected, and by then I had soaked up too much atmosphere to do anything about it).

So now if any of you say, “Meh, I don’t get what the fuss is about Target,” I will nod understandingly rather than reeling back in shock and horror. I will imagine you at the grey, flickering, plodding Target.

Hey, Kathi A! You won Erin’s contest!

Mr. Pickles would like to point out that before there was a Rollback, there was a Rollforward: these were $2.50 for ages, then $3.18 for a couple of weeks, and now just LOOK how they’re ROLLING BACK PRICES! They just KEEP ROLLING THEM BACK!

Mr. Pickles does not consider this an acceptable “clearance” price. Target had these for $1.07. Now THAT’S a clearance price.

Nor is this an acceptable “clearance” price, particularly since Mr. Pickles just saw this same game on clearance at Target for $4.74.

Here is something that particularly aggravates Mr. Pickles: when an item is available and available and available, and then suddenly not available—not because of being discontinued, but because of, apparently, PURE WHIM. Walmart used to have the big cans of Contadina crushed tomatoes, but now they have only the puree. Mr. Pickles doesn’t know how he’s supposed to make chili without Contadina crushed tomatoes.

And THIS situation. One of the MAIN REASONS Mr. Pickles comes to Walmart is to buy these huge bottles of Tabasco sauce. They’ve been out of stock for weeks, with this empty shelf space just SITTING here. WTF. Mr. Pickles’s spouse uses Tabasco like a beverage, and after the current bottle, and the next bottle, there is only one bottle left.

Fine, Mr. Pickles caves. He will buy the smaller sizes. But how can he compare the unit price when one size is unit-priced in ounces and the other is unit-priced in quarts? Nice workaround to a pesky legal requirement, Walmart.

Rolling back from $2.50 to $3.00. Mr. Pickles thinks someone forgot that step one of the “Rollback” was supposed to be Our Little Secret.

Well. Okay. This is pretty hard to complain about. This stuff usually costs over $3.00. Mr. Pickles buys five.

Mr. Pickles checks his receipt carefully. It is like a game, finding Today’s Errors. Only one error this time: the balloons were marked $1.00 but rang up as $1.25. Mr. Pickles has seen worse.

[For more photos, join us, joiiiiinnnnnn ussssssss!]

I am so SCATTERED! My mind is ALL OVER THE PLACE. My mental to-do list is about 5 seconds: if I don’t write something down immediately, it’s GONE FOREVER.

I blame Henry. I can’t believe the changes around here. Elizabeth, observing Henry for a few minutes this morning, exclaimed, “Isn’t he a bad baby!” Er, not that I’d say so. But when a child keeps trying to climb INTO and OUT OF his high chair; when a child can open baby gates; when a child can climb out of a play yard; when a child drags chairs so he can get to high places; when a child takes flying leaps toward unsuspecting parents; when a child CLIMBS A LAMP, FOR THE LOVE OF TARGET, things are getting kind of DIFFICULT.

I don’t think any of my previous children were this, um, ADEPT, or perhaps they WERE and I just didn’t write it down before the 5 seconds were up so I’ve forgotten. We never needed doorknob protectors before. No one ever opened a baby gate without being specifically taught to do so. No one stood on the sill of the bay window and took a flying leap toward me as I sat reading on the not-so-very-nearby recliner, alerted to the situation only by the sound of an older child saying, “No, Henry, don’t jump!”

Well. So. Where was I? It’s been more than 5 seconds since I started this post, so I’m sitting here looking confused and wondering what my original intent was before I started talking about how Henry will be lucky to have all his teeth and limbs as an adult, and so will I.

Oh, yes, I remember: I DID write it down, but then forgot I’d done so. Here it is. I was going to whine about how I had to cancel a get-together with a friend today because the weather promised one thing and delivered another, so now I’m sulky and at loose ends, wondering if I should eat ALL the leftover cake or just SOME of it.

But was that really all I was going to say? I can’t remember. ….AAAAAA, don’t jump, don’t jump! *twitch twitch*

I only have two seconds to write this, because a closed computer-room door separates me from a climbing, gate-breaking, button-pressing Henry, but YOU only have, like, an HOUR to enter Erin’s pay-it-forward contest!

Question: If you have kids in school, do you give the teachers an end-of-year gift? And if so, what do you give and what is the approximate value? I’ll put a poll over to the right to get an idea of general answers, but we’ll also discuss in the comment section.

This week Henry has shown that he is able to:

1) Climb out of his playpen
2) Open the bathroom door
3) Open the baby gate at the top of the stairs
4) Fall down the stairs

So. I had Henry’s 2-year portraits done at JCPenney.

First, let’s review Henry’s personality. He’s a sturdy, climbing, copying-older-siblings kind of guy; cheery and stubborn; tackling people, flinging things, getting into things; getting angry and yelling when thwarted; leaping onto people and saying “MMMMmmmmmm!” as he cuddles into their bruised bodies. THIS kind of thing:

Here is what I was expecting the portrait studio problem to be: overabundance of exuberance; getting into things; refusing to stand still; running around; being loud; playing games where he turns around suddenly just as the camera clicks.

Here is what the problem in fact WAS: clinging to Mother with all his claws; using his feet to climb higher; face crumpling; whimpering, “No, no, no. I not like it, camera. No, no want it, pictures.”

After a few minutes of this, a guy photographer came in and started doing silly stuff. Henry appreciated the effort but declined to get out of my arms—even if I sat right next to him. Finally I asked the girl photographer, “What do you…DO…in situations like these?” and she indicated the guy photographer and said, “I call HIM!” I said, “So we’ve already used our emergency option?” and she said, “Yes!” We both laughed and groaned a little.

Then I asked if we could just…take the picture with him on my lap. I mean, it would look weird with a “parts of Mommy” background rather than the nice white one she’d chosen, but at least we’d HAVE a picture. It’s not like we’re shooting a national ad campaign here: if the lighting is nice and the facial expression is characteristic, the background can be weird.

Well, so that’s what we did. And she got some really good pictures, too, especially considering the circumstances. She even got one of the two of us together in an “on purpose” way instead of in an “oops, part of Mommy got in that shot” way.

That’s just how he was. See how his knee is up? He’s CLIMBING me. And I’m all pretending I don’t care about my hair.

As he got more comfy, she had me lean back a teensy bit, and she went in from a side angle and zoomed way in:

This is the one I considered his “main” picture. It’s not entirely characteristic (he’s holding his mouth and chin oddly), and part of my arm is in the background, but it had the elements I was looking for in a photo: the child is holding still and looking not entirely unpleasant.

I got some of this one, too: it’s sad, but it’s cute.

Too sad: look at the downturned mouth corners and the Anxiety Eyebrows.

This one I love a LOT, because it looks JUST like him. But it looks “JUST like him” if he’s “JUST been told that everyone but him is going to visit the zoo, have a picnic, and get ice cream cones afterward.”

OMG I have HAD IT. NONE of my pens write nicely. I HATE the scratchy gel ones. I HATE the skippy ballpoints. I HATE any pen that doesn’t make a smooth, even, consistent line. The finepoint permanents are lovely but they lose their fine points too soon, and also they soak through thinner papers.

HELP ME. Tell me which pens to buy. I don’t even CARE anymore what they cost, if they will just WRITE NICELY.