My Sour Patch Kids

The first time I saw this commercial, it really struck my funny bone. It still makes me laugh.. and even more now... I'll tell you why. For those who couldn't pull up the link, it is a commercial for the candy called, Sour Patch Kids. In this clip, an animated piece of candy who cuts a girls hair off maliciously then takes a 180 degree turn to becoming sweet and cuddly as it warms up to its victim by hugging her leg. How strange that someone thought up such a profound commercial for a simple candy only to reveal the two tastes of sour and sweet that the candy dually offers.

Sour Patch kids happens to be one of the many candies that my husband and I really enjoy. It's actually one of our favorites!  At our first home we lived in in Virginia, I had this one drawer that I managed to always keep filled with all of our favorite candy.  We would dig into it prior to watching a movie and it was great for when we had friends over to watch with us! Yes,  Brandon and I both share a childish love for sour candy.  Ironically, most of our friends have a taste for the same sugary snacks that we like.  Some have asked us to this day if we still have our candy drawer.  We tell them we do, only now it is in a very high hiding spot that only a dwarf with super hero powers could get to.  Our dwarfs have powers, but they're no super heroes. :-)  Besides the fact that our candy drawer has changed location, it also has a  new feature added to it.  It now has chocolate!  Brandon doesnt care much for chocolate and I hated chocolate as a child, but for some strange reason after I gave birth to my first baby girl I became a chocolate fanatic.  I now have a chocolate stash, in addition to our sour candy stash which is primarily my husbands. :-)

What does this have to do with our children? Well, I am pretty sure that I ate a few too many of these while I was pregnant, because I have given birth to three Sour Patch Kids! (an orange one, a green one, and a yellow one, to be precise).  They are all very sweet, but they have a very sour side to them and I am not talking about aged milk.  These kids can turn in the blink of an eye, and its usually when you least expect it.  Speaking of eyes... the other day I told Austin I could see everything he was doing because I had eyes in the back of my head.  I told him they were hiding under my hair.  Busting out laughing he said, "Mom, thats silly. You'd look like an alien if you had eyes there.  Pull your hair up and let me see."  He was a little unsure as to whether I was serious or not.  I think he knows now... I hope.

Austin is my orange Sour Patch Kid. He is not the most sour one in the bunch, but never the less, still has a bite to him.  He can be very aggressive towards his sister, he can be playing and laughing with her one moment and then lashing out at her the next minute for taking his seat in the van.  He will pull hair and punch, even though he looks like he doesn't have it in him.  I only wish that this sour side, would kick into action out on the soccer field.  He has skills, but is not very aggressive.  If he could take the same aggressive behavior he has towards his sister and put it into his efforts on the field, he just might be a star player one day!  Until then, I'll be biting my tongue on the side lines as he allows the ball to roll right past him.  He is also very much a teddy bear.  He looks like one and he even acts like one most of the time.  He has a very thoughtful side to him and is very much concerned about others especially those he loves.

Ava Marie is my green Sour Patch Kid.  Yes, the most sour one in the bag, but a favorite of many. She is the one that makes me laugh so hard at the commercial above.  She is the most like the kid that cuts the hair and then immediately following, tries to butter up to you.  Ava will kick, scream, throw tantrums, push and shove.  She is very determined and I think this will take her far someday, if we can get her on the right path first and foremost.  My fear with her is that one of these days she's going to come cut a chunk out of my hair when I'm not looking.  I think my sour side would ferociously appear instantly if that ever happened, so lets just hope it doesn't! :-)  Like her brother, Ava can be very sweet.  She has this tiny little voice sounding as though she sucked up a balloon full of helium when she talks.  She is so caring and loving to Ainsley.  She likes to pretend that she is Ainsley's mommy, which is fine for Ainsley, but Austin is not too fond of it when she tries to mother him.  Such a cute bunch they are.

Ainsley is my yellow sour patch kid. At a very young age, she already has a pucker to her.  It's actually something new, this sour side, that she has recently picked up, and its probably due to residing in the same bag with the green kid.  Ainsley has developed a hitting and swatting problem. She has always had some defensive mechanisms to her, but lately if she becomes at odds with her sibs or even me, she will just swing out and slap her opposer.  My first inclination is to laugh, but this could become serious for the little 'gangsta'  if the problem at hand, (no pun intended) inclines and continues as she grows bigger and stronger.  She is a cuddle bug though.  She's mostly a mellow yellow Sour Patch Kid. She hasn't given us too many problems yet.  One thing that does concern me is her kissable face, but not too worried, because if it does stay as kissable when she becomes a teen, hopefully she'll put her slap into action to keep the boys off of her.

This blog has been a little rough on the AAA's so I will end it by saying they really are sweet kids. Brandon and I love them all and each of their unique personalities more than words can ever express. We love both their sweet sides and their sour sides, and just for the record, all of our kids share the same love for this sugary snack as we do. Even Ainsley has tried this sour candy at only a year old, due to the 'sweet' side of her sister who decided to share one with her.  I'm yet to find a candy my kids don't love, but glad that we can all share in the sweet and sour enjoyment of Sour Patch Kids, the number one candy for the home of the Parks, Party of Five!!

Gold Teeth, Bras, Mud Baths and Filet Mignon! What could this all mean?

I have been trying to pursue a goal of posting every Thursday.  On April 7th, I did not meet that goal, but I cannot let the week pass me by without taking the opportunity to share just a few enlightenments from the past few days. I usually find time to write after the kids go to bed, especially on Wednesday nights, as Brandon doesn't usually arrive home until midnight, so I have the quiet house to myself.  Due to this unusual week, after putting the kids to bed, I've found myself cleaning up the kitchen, doing some laundry, and then dragging my feet to the beckoning of my beloved bed. Oh how I love that bed, especially after long endless days. I don't even know where to begin, but I guess the first of the week is a great start...

It was going to be a long evening and we were out of milk and diapers. I would usually go to the nearest Publix for such essentials, but diapers are always cheaper elsewhere so I ventured out to Wally World with all three A's. Walmart in Homestead is probably one of my least favorite places to visit due to the high volume of interesting people you find there. I usually will put in an effort to get all three kids safe and sound in the shopping cart, where I dont have to worry so intensely about them getting snatched. This also puts a limit on how much I can throw in the cart. Three kids in one cart doesn't leave a whole lot of room for much of anything. On this particular evening Austin and Ava both wanted to be outside of the cart so I gave them a chance. They did alright at first, but as their energy accelerated, they began to stray further away from me and I finally had to stop them and say in my most serious lecture-type voice, "Do you see all of these people?  One of them is a bad man, but I don't know which one it is, and you don't want to find out." You could literally see the fear in Austin's eyes after I said this. Austin and Ava's definition of a bad man is, A very bad person who will take me from mommy and daddy when they're not around and never bring me back. I know it sounds harsh to put such a scary thought in the mind of a child, but it really does work for them, and if it keeps them a little more safe in this dangerous place we live in then its kosher.  From that point on, they clung close to me. When it was time to check out, it didn't surprise me when all twenty of the lines had at least six or seven people backed up with full carts, but it did give me a feeling of hopelessness like I was never going to get out of this hectic place. It ended up taking 45 minutes to get through the check out line. As I stood there, watching the milk drip with condensation and wondering if it would make it home before spoiling, the kids drooled over the candy rack. They must have sorted through, what seemed like, one-hundred different flavors and varieties requesting for me to pretty please purchase each one. Repeatedly they would keep going back to this particular gooey, sugar and food coloring gel candy that for some reason they both wanted. I was so weary and tired at that point, I caved and said yes to this child desirable treat that I later regretted getting them. Its always such a relief to return home after such a trip as the previous..to know I won't have to do it again for a little while, or at least until we run out of things..

Day two: Brandon has consistant meetings and appointments throughout the day, but its the ones at the end of the day that determine whether or not we will be eating dinner closer to six or seven. On this particular day, his meetings were backed up an hour or two. As dinner was blackening in the oven, I had the kids outside trying to wear them down, when a long came the meat man in his truck full of frozen meat. This man has been to my house numerous times trying to sell me his fresh seafood and lean steaks which he claims my neighbors consistantly buy and love. As he was going through his sales pitch, the kids managed to find some dirt to play in on the corner of our driveway. They didnt just play in it, they bathed in it. I was trying both to pay attention to Mr. Meat Man who was really starting to get on my nerves and keep track of all three children but when Ainsley waddled up to me looking like she'd just had some chocolate and a cigarette, I gave up and becoming a little delirious, I told him "Ok, why not" I was thinking maybe this would be one less trip to the grocery store, seeing where this meat looked as though it would last me a year.

Brandon walked through the door just as I was writing out the check with a dirty Ainsley on my hip.  He had the most puzzled look on his face as there were two men standing in my kitchen and packing my freezer with meat. I didn't even have to tell him where the other kids were. All he had to do was look down at the dirty trail leading to the bathroom where you could hear the mud flying. Brandon was not happy about the meat purchase. And we were both a bit concerned when one of the men returned thirty minutes later with Brandon's iPhone that he "claimed" must have stuck onto one of the meat boxes..???  After the kids had gone to bed I started regretting my 168 dollar purchase. To make a long story short, the following day I got online and determined to make these meats worth while. I found a great recipe for balsamic tuna steaks that I cooked to Brandon's liking and to ease my conscience about my unstable-minded purchase.

Day 3: In order for me to make the balsamic tuna steaks, I had to make yet another trip to the store to purchase some of the ingredients the recipe called for. So, the day after purchasing the meat and only two days after my last heinous trip to the store, I find myself having to make another round. I know Target has popcorn, so I thought, maybe I can bribe the kids with some popcorn to keep them all in the cart while I get what I need. One thing is absolute when I go to Target, and that is the fact that I love this store and always get more than what I need when I go there. With all three children in the cart I begin to walk past the bathing suits, shoes, and come across the bra and lingerie section. I stopped the cart for no longer than thirty seconds and the two oldest of the AAA's had climbed out of the cart, managed to get a bra over their heads and were twirling around singing, "I have boobies!  I have boobies!"  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this and neither could the woman down the isle who was bent over laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. What would possess a child to do such a thing??  I must have gone through at least three shades of pink, but I think they heard laughter in my voice when I told them to take them off and get back in the cart, because they ran off and I had to chase them through the lingerie section while Ainsley was chillin' in the cart with the popcorn all to herself. This trip to the store ended with me out of breath and the kids wound up tighter than ticks by the time we got home.

The adventures of the week did not stop at Target. I could still write about the event where the garage door was going up with a screaming Ava Marie clung to the side, or  how the box of Trix cereal got from the top of my pantry to covering my kitchen floor. Oh, and I can't forget the gold toothed black man who showed up in my driveway, on a bike, as I was vacuuming out the van. The kids were outside with me, so I with my vacuum being the only weapon I had to use as a defense, had to think of a way to corral my kids to a safe haven while keeping the non-lucid man a good distance from myself...This put the icing on the cake as part of my unbelievable week, but these stories and their details will have to wait for another blog another time. For now I am just going to rejoice in the fact that this week can never repeat itself ever again but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, there will always be crazy people, crazy acting kids, and crazy sales men, helping to make this world more of a CRAZY place!!