Requisite Post

As a mommy blogger, I feel compelled to share with you the adorable things my son does. And hoo boy, today was a doozy.

I've been trying to get him to look at himself in the mirror for WEEKS but he'll have none of it. Today he finally caught his own eye and just spent a good time grinning toothlessly at himself. It was beyond darling. Just sos you know, I get to spend all day long with the cutest thing to walk this earth.  Okay maybe not walk just yet, but when he finally achieves ambulation baby seals, sneezing pandas, and lol cats alike better look out.

As proof please examine the following:

Amiright?

Mommy blogger duty: fulfilled.

Favorite Store No More

I generally consider myself to be a reasonable and forgiving person.  I'm all about giving second chances.

But blow your second chance and... ho buddy, watch out.

Kohl's used to be my favorite store.  They frequently have good deals and they do a lot to get you back into their store, again and again (I'm looking at you, Kohl's Cash).

Due to two recent incidents, however, I am disinclined to shop there any more.

Incident Number 1:

We received a set of onesies for Jack that happened to come from Kohl's.  I really liked the onesies, but they were newborn size and he outgrew newborn clothes in about a week, so we decided to exchange them for a bigger size.  So Lewis, Jack, and I all head to Kohl's to make the exchange.  We go and find a set of onesies in the size we want and Lewis takes them to customer service to make an exchange while I shop.

The representative at customer service tells Lewis that he has to pay more money because the onesies we were exchanging were from last season.  Normally this would be understandable, except for the part where this season's onesies and last season's onesies were identical.

But the computer said that there was a price difference so Lewis had to pay the difference.  Naturally Lewis asked to speak to a manager.

The manager came out and immediately started treating Lewis like a hostile customer.  If you've met Lewis, you know that he doesn't know how to be hostile.  This was ridiculous.  Neither the customer service representative nor the manager could find any difference between the two sets of onesies (except for the size), but Lewis still had to pay the difference because that's what the computer said and there was nothing they could do about it. (Yeah, right.  There's always something you can do.)

Frustrated, Lewis paid the difference (we couldn't just take the wrong sized onesies home - they would have no use!) and went to find me.  He recounted the story and I immediately put back the $60 boots I was about to buy and we walked out.  We were planning on spending real money that day, but because of a $7 difference in two sets of identical onesies, we left with nothing.  Except the onesies.

When we got home Lewis sent off a message to the corporate customer service office.  They responded apologetically and assured us that we would hear back from that location within the week.

It's been over a month and we've heard zilch.

Incident Number 2:

A few weeks after the first incident occurred, I was willing to forgive the larger company that is Kohl's (see, I said I was forgiving) and just avoid the American Fork location, since they never responded like they were supposed to.  Plus Lewis and I both got gift cards to Kohl's for our birthdays (they were given before Incident Number 1) that needed spending.  Over Fall Break we were going to be in the greater Provo/Orem area anyway, so we decided to go and spend our cards at the Orem location.

Unsuccessfully.  The boots I was going to buy before didn't end up looking that good on me (chicken legs) and I was unimpressed with their clothing selection (this is bad news - post-baby me needs new clothes).  Lewis was going to get new jeans, but the ones he wanted were not on sale and they're kind of pricey.  I had been wanting a bread machine for a long time and Lewis has finally caught on to the idea of frequent fresh bread, so we decided to pool our gift cards and get that.  They didn't have any in-store, though so we went online.

We read through the reviews of each of their bread machines and selected one that had good reviews and a decent price.  Bam.  Ordered.  This was October 21st.

On October 23rd, I received an email that said our bread machine was ready to be shipped.  Included in the email was the requisite information for tracking my package.  It also said that the bread machine would arrive between October 27th and November 2nd.

Knowing that often packages will arrive before their designated window, I casually checked the tracking the next day.  The UPS website said that a shipping label had been created but the package had not yet arrived at their facility.  No big deal, it was still early.

So I checked again the next day.  No change.  Same thing the next day and the next and the next all the way to yesterday (November 8th).  By this point I was really annoyed that I didn't have my bread maker at my house and fresh bread in my belly.

Also in the email there was a link to follow the shipping from Kohl's website as well.  I had glanced at that a few times to be informed that the package had shipped.  That's all it said.  Nothing more specific.

So Kohl's Customer Service received another email from the Youngs.  I heard back from them not too much later.  They informed me that UPS made a mistake (not them, but UPS - way to own up to stuff, Kohl's.  Even if it was UPS, you're at fault too cause I bought the product from you.) and because of that they were unable to reship my bread machine.  They would return my money/gift cards, and if I still wanted the bread machine, I would have to reorder it.

I was livid.  First of all, why can't Kohl's reorder my item, why do I have to?  I ordered it, so obviously I want it.  Fix the mistake and then reprocess the order!  Second of all, if there was a problem with my order, why was I the one to contact Kohl's and not the other way around?  If they figured out the problem so quickly, it's obviously been there a while and they should have contacted me as soon as there was a problem.

And of course, since we used gift cards, we can't just go buy a bread machine somewhere else.  Or I suppose we could, but the money that was spent on the gift cards was already given to Kohl's so I'm not going to let those gift cards go unused.  I'm so freaking irritated.  And of course, we have to wait to get our money back (4-8 days to get a new gift card and 14-30 to get the excess returned) so I can't even just reorder the bread machine immediately because we don't just have enough money for it lying around.

In a world of Web 2.0 and social networking, Kohl's should know better than to let stuff  like this happen.  When anyone can get online and tell a story, companies need to make sure that they are telling good stories about them.

Kohl's wants us to "Expect great things."  Well I did.  And I didn't get them.

Sorry, Kohl's.  I'm out.

Weird Thing and Awesome Thing

As a stay-at-home mom, I don't get out much.  I therefore have to amuse myself with the little things that happen during my day, which may come at the expense of others.  I find this to be a healthy exercise.  I have no doubt that my mind would degenerate rapidly if I was only amused by the goings on of my adorable two-month-old.  He's darling and does cute stuff, sure.  But still.  If I'm ever to make it back to the classroom, I need my mind to stay sharp.

This is my justification for laughing at the following two incidents: One weird and one awesome.

The Weird:

Jack and I were chilling on the couch downstairs when I heard someone open the gate to our backyard.  At first I thought it was Lewis (it was about time for him to get home) but why would he come in the back?  I heard whoever it was jiggle the doorknob and, finding it locked, knock rather aggressively on the door.  In the back of my mind I was still thinking it had to be Lewis because, really, who else could it be?  There is no one I know who would try to come to my house through the back door.  Luckily I had enough smarts to open the blinds before opening the door because it was most definitely a stranger.  As I opened the blinds I gave this young hoodlum (I just assumed he was a hoodlum because he entered my yard through its closed gate but I suppose he could be an upstanding young man.  It's fifty-fifty.) an odd look and said, "Um, can I help you?"  He, rather quickly, seemed to ascertain that I was not who he thought I was going to be, offered a look of surprised, and hurried his little behind off my property.

Since this incident I've considered two possible explanations for why this occurred.  Number 1: This young gentleman was a close enough friend of our house's former occupants that he could visit them from their back yard.  The reason he hasn't been back since they moved out is because he was off filling the world with do-goodery.

Number 2: He got the wrong house because they all look the same and there isn't a house number in the back.

The world will never know which it is.

The Awesome:

Lewis had a long week.  It was Halloween, Jack's been keeping us up later than usual, and he's coming down with a cold.  As such he's pretty exhausted by the time Friday rolls around.  It was a little after 9 PM last night when I was trying to get Jack to fall asleep.  Lewis was lying in bed while I rocked and sang to our little toot and managed to fall asleep before Jack did.  Unfortunately we had not yet said our family prayer, nor had Lewis taken out his contacts.  Knowing that he would regret the latter (and hopefully the former), I shook Lewis awake after I put Jack down in his bed.  It was Lewis' turn to say the prayer and he technically did, but the prayer consisted of asking for Jack to be blessed and thanking for our house.  After he finished, he climbed back into bed only to be annoyed by me again, telling him to go take out his contact lenses.  He grudgingly complied and that was that.

Until this morning.  While Jack and I were downstairs, I heard Lewis call me from upstairs and ask why his contacts were not in their case.  Instead of putting them inside, in his half-awake state, he somehow managed to place them on the side of his case where I'm sure they dried right out.

Between that and his prayer, I'm still giggling.

Maybe I'm too easily amused.

A Post About Poop

I officially dub this week to be poopy.

My dear son Jack, who has not had a blowout in nearly a MONTH, decided to have two - two - major ones this week.

The first went straight up his front.  Not his back, his front.  I didn't even know that was possible.  I guess you learn something new every day as a parent.

The second one went not only up his front, but down his legs too.  It then travelled into his hands and onto his feet as he wailed and flailed while I cleaned him up.  The most impressive part was the amount I cleaned out of his belly button.

Did I mention that these were the only two poo diapers he's had in the past three days?  And I thought I would be excited when his digestive tract matured and he stopped having so many poopy diapers...