Snow: Target and Meltdowns

Yep: This is all we got:

I cannot believe that today was a snow day. It snowed maybe a fingerbreadth...maybe.  But, since everyone is home I thought I should restock on some essentials: milk, bread, Target clearance aisles...that sort of thing:

So off to the stores did Josh, Alivia and I go:

I've been homebound since Friday due to a flu bug that rocked the socks off our family, and found it particularly amazing that I was ready to go by noon:

Although Josh and I were not infected: 

(well, Josh was...on purpose. He went and got the flu shot yesterday. I'm not sure what the point was since he's been around it for a week, and now his arm is sore,  AND he will probably come down from something related to the shot...but that's another story), 

Alivia has been sick. No fever since yesterday morning though and today she's just had a runny nose... which she likes to wipe on my arm because I'm the handiest thing next to her:

Alivia, getting ready to cough on me:

Anyway...by the time we hit Safeway check-out line Alivia was done. She is so over shopping. She needed a nap and something in her stomach, other than the delicious frosted sugar cookies that she demands at Target:

So while I pay for the over-priced bread and milk Josh took her out to the car...screaming the whole way. I could hear her even after the automatic door closes. I was only a few minutes behind them, but it was just enough time for Josh to decide he will NEVER have children:

What the huh? Is what I was thinking. I mean it had only been 2 minutes tops since she left my side. What's the deal:

Josh: I am so not having any snotty nose, crying babies.

Me: What the huh?

Josh: Well, first they're just crying, poopy, pink blobs. Then they turn into snotty nosed toddlers who only want you to entertain them. Then they become mischievous 6 year olds, then they become in-between kids who don't know who they are or where they belong, then they become know-it-all bratty teenagers and THEN (deep breath here) they become stupid college students who only want money from you (a little insight into our family life):

~Background noise: Alivia screaming so hard she's dry-heaving~
 

Me: What the huh?...(I'm a little slow)...But you are so good with Alivia. You'll be a great dad. And honestly, when you find the right person, you'll actually want kids because...

Josh:  Hormones:

Me: ...well...yes, but not just that. You get this crazy feeling that you don't know where it comes from. And it's like you actually want to have kids. It just inexplicably happens.

Josh: Whatever:

I know Josh will probably have kids. Way, way, WAY in the future. And he's always good natured about our family and the crazy situations his sisters put him in. He's got a great sense of humor and practices it all the time on me. In the meantime I've got to change parenting tactics so that he knows that there's a reward in all of this:

Brotherly love:

There are days, though, that I wonder why I had these predatory beasts:

Fear the predator: