me time for $2.50 a bag

Alice called and told me Target had their Kellogg's cereal 5 for $11, plus a $5 gift card. Perfect.

Being the bargain shopper I pretend to be, I decided to make the arduous drive down the street to our Target, and push through the crowds of rudeness so common at 9:00pm, and make the sacrifice for my family, all in the name of mommy martyrdom and budget crisis...to check out the cereal revival...oh..the chip aisle...I may as well stroll down casually and look for any more red SALE signs, because that's what a good economically minded mommy does...oh look...I did not purposefully see that my chips are 2 for $5.00. What a pleasant surprise.

Heaven on earth. A Flat Earth. And I'll tell you why.

You may think this post is about obsession and gluttony, but it is much worse. It's about pregnancy.

I don't know if many of you are familiar with the term hyperemesis gravidarum. Once you understand that emesis means to vomit...you see where I'm going. Use your Latin brains.

Majorus Puketorus. My face in the toilet is no big deal anymore. I basically threw up for..what's 9 x 5...35 months of my short life. I would lose 10-20 pounds before I would gain any, and then it wasn't much because not only was I puking up the smell of water, but the word appetite, too. Luckily smart people realized the anti-nausea drug, Zofran, used for chemo-therapy patients worked for pregnancy related miseries as well. But I couldn't even keep the tiny pill down. (The thought of swallowing $10 every 6-8 hours is enough to make anyone chuck, emesis or not.) So good insurance came to the rescue and for two of the five, I got to stick a big needle attached to a tiny tube attached to a vial of the million dollar miracle into my leg every 2-3 days; and attach that to a pump that, well, pumped a continuous drip of expensive relief into my bloodstream. It took the edge off. I found a picture of it for ya. It helps with the visualization.

Okay...the chips...

My sister Cassy had bought these chips while I was in the hospital enjoying my last and final delivery. My first day home she puts them in my face. "Here, try these," she says. I said no thanks, because it was habit. I didn't eat real food.

Then I remembered I wasn't pregnant anymore. I tried one.

The clouds of maternity woe parted. The rays of sweet culinary goodness came breaking through the 3.8 years of hyper pukes. Those chips. I was free. Free from the bonds of the porcelin monster. Free from my love affair with ice chips. I could eat food again.

So I ate the whole bag.

And then the other one.

And then bought eight more.

Now, whenever I can sneak it, I buy myself a bag and eat as much as non-pregnancy-possible during the two minute drive home from Target. All by myself; as a sweet treat to ME. Alone with my chips, and all of their symbolic glory. Just me and my non-vomitting self.

The five pregnancies are gone and forgotten. The nausea worth the gold. I love my kids.

And I love to eat.

Wild Berry Patch holds the most meaning for me, but the Peach Mango Paradise sure are scrumptious, too.