Last Friday at 6:12 p.m., I was standing in Walmart with one kid licking a cart handle (why) and another negotiating for a $9.98 Fortnite card like he was my accountant. I’d planned to grab “just a few things.” My receipt was 4 feet long and the self-checkout light was flashing at me like I’d…
I signed up for Sam’s Club on a Wednesday because I had that “I’m a responsible adult now” energy. By Saturday, I was wrestling a 48-pack of something into my trunk while my phone calculator did Olympic-level gymnastics: membership fee divided by trips divided by “will my kids actually eat this?” Then I stopped at…
Last Thursday I walked into Target for “just printer paper” and walked out with a sad little Starbucks, a new candle I didn’t need, and a bag of mini muffins my kids inhaled before we hit the stoplight. I dumped the haul on my kitchen counter and did that thing where you line it all…
Last Thursday, I was crouched in my pantry doing that sad mom math where you count snack bars like they’re gold bars. My youngest was chanting “hungry” at a volume that could rattle cereal boxes, and I was holding a store receipt thinking, wow, I really paid that for paper towels. So I pulled up…
Last Thursday I did the thing I always swear I won’t do: wandered into Walmart “for milk” and walked out $187 poorer with a cart full of stuff I didn’t even remember grabbing. In the parking lot, my 6-year-old was eating the emergency granola bar I keep in the glove box, and I was staring…
Last year, I was sitting on the hallway carpet on December 23rd with a calculator app open and a bag of random stocking stuffers from Target rolling around my feet like tumbleweeds. I had three kids, a half-wrapped box that looked like a lopsided brick, and that specific kind of panic you only get when…
I was 33 weeks pregnant, sitting on my living room floor with a tape gun, labeling bins like I was opening a tiny baby supply store. My husband walked in, looked at the growing pile of “must-haves,” and said, “Are we… building a nursery or funding a startup?” I laughed, then immediately panic-cried because I’d…
On September 28th, I was sitting on my laundry room floor folding tiny socks that never match, when my email pinged with a Target circle offer I’d ignored all summer. My middle kid yelled, “Mom, the glue stick is stuck!” and I thought, Cool, same. Then I looked at my calendar and realized I could…