The Yogurt Fight and a Bonus Story

When I got home from work Thursday night Jacob was already asleep so Zach and I had some time for real communication. Turns out, by his request, that most of Jacob's dinner consisted of yogurt, which is ok once a week or so. Even though I got the full report on the night, Zach left out the part where they finished the container of yogurt.

Some background info: Yogurt is far and away Jacob's favorite food. When I was a Walmart shopper, yogurt was my prime reason for going there. Seriously. I buy (at least I did) the big Yoplait containers for $2. Each big container would only last 2-3 days in this house. They come in strawberry, peach and strawberry-banana. No place else carries the big Yoplaits. After I stopped going to Walmart I would make friends and family stock up on yogurt when they went to Walmart and I'd pay them back - hey, at least I wasn't physically going there. Eventually Hannaford started carrying Columbo in the big containers and so that's what we get now. But I only get one or two at a time because my heart is just not in it, what with there only being the standard strawberry flavor. I guess I'm just holding out for the day they start to carry Yoplait, and when that day comes I don't want to be stuck with 4 containers of crappy Columbo. If you're wondering what to get the Zach/Jacob/Stacey family for Christmas...boy do we miss the peach flavor...

Cut to crack-of-dawn early on Friday morning...Jacob wakes up and wants - you guessed it, yogurt. On 1 out of 2 nights Jacob wakes up and wants to eat yogurt. I have to admit, it's the perfect middle-of-the-night food; creamy, slippery going down, yet not too heavy - and I'm happy that it's got protein and calcium, nevermind all the sugar. We don't know what to do. If we refuse, Jacob's just going to cry for a long time, then want to get up and play, and besides, he's hungry, it would be mean to deny him. I understand this is breaking a vital rule, but at least he goes back to sleep after that. Anyway, it's just enough hours past midnight where the yogurt could be considered breakfast and I'm so glad that I don't have to feel guilty about giving it to him that I don't even bother to fight with Zach about who's going to get it.

A complete inventory of the fridge is taken and no yogurt is to be found. "Zach, where did you put the yogurt last night when you were done with it?" I call up, even though I already know the answer. Silence. Finally, "We finished it." Hello?? I don't think we've ever not had yogurt in the house. Jacob eats it like 3 times a day, it's inconcievable to not have yogurt. I start yelling about Zach not telling me the night before (and I know you're thinking that it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but it would have because after I got home from work Zach tried to convince me to go to the store to get ice cream - had I known we were out of yogurt, I definitely would have gone), he does the defensive guy thing and instead of apologizing, gets all pissy and to make a point, gets out of bed and starts dressing to go to the store - at 5 in the morning. Oh, and all this time Jacob is sitting up in bed flipping out because he wants yogurt. "You can't go to the store now," I argue, "you'll be rewarding him for acting like this." Zach doesn't think so. "OK, then you'll just be spoiling him. If you go to the store now, for this, what happens next time he wants something and we don't have it? He's going to expect you to drop what you're doing and go to the store then too." I win this time, but no one's going back to sleep now.

Zach leaves to take the dogs for the world's longest walk, while I'm here with a very much awake 3 year-old. Zach got most of a full-night's sleep already because he goes to bed several hours before me, but I'm working on about 3 hours of sleep here. Jacob is willing to settle for Cheerios. No, he doesn't want milk. I bring a bowl of dry Cheerios up to bed and stick a Kipper video from the library in our 'floater' TV (this is the one that has an attached VHS slot, only plays videos and doesn't actually get any channels) temporarily residing on one of the dressers. It's still there from that time Zach had the big headache and I left Jacob at home with him while I did a few quick errands. I get back into bed. Jacob changes his mind about the milk. No way am I getting back out of bed because we have already babied him enough for the rest of the week. To my utter shock, Jacob actually settles for the 50/50 water/apple juice mixture next to the bed in a sippy cup, left over from the 3am thirsting. Liquid poured over cereal and tantrum avoided.

The bonus story: For over a week now Zach's debit card has been missing. We each have our own checking accounts, and then we have the joint one, but I'm really the only one who uses it. So it didn't much matter when Zach discovered last week that his card to the joint account was missing. We had been in Target together, and my wallet was in the car so he handed me his card and then went off to look at something while Jacob and I checked out. A couple days later is when he discovered it missing. We all searched everywhere and everything. Target didn't have it, Zach and I couldn't remember which one of had it in possession last - I swore I gave it back to him, he didn't remember getting it back. I called the bank a couple times during the week to make sure there were no other charges on it. I knew it was somewhere in the house.

All week long I kept telling everyone that I didn't want to cancel it because I knew it would show up. I, in fact, said the words, "I know as soon as I cancel it, it is going to show up." On Thursday night I broke down and called just before they closed at 9 to block the card. On Friday morning I was getting something off the top of the entertainment center, so I quickly picked up the kleenex box to move it out of the way - and there, right under the box layed the irreversibly blocked debit card. But I had to make the call to cancel it anyway, because everyone knows the Irony Gods were just waiting to put that card in the most obvious place until after it was rendered useless.