The day before yesterday I went grocery shopping.

Well — shopping was my intent.

What the outing actually turned out to be was more like grocery looting.

It was an accident! I didn’t mean to steal that package of quarter-pound Angus hamburger patties! I fully intended to pay for it, even if it was at the back of my mind that it was $4.68 I didn’t have to spend if I would just use the ground beef I’d bought for a quarter of the price at Super H-Mart a few weeks before and frozen. But A) Walmart’s pre-made Angus patties make far jucier burgers than the lean beef I use for tacos or mostaccioli and B) I make hamburger patties about as well as I make pancakes. And anyway, when you think about the fact that it’s $4.68 (plus the trifling cost of buns and condiments) for two meals for two people, that works out to be cheaper than ordering off the value menu at a fast food burger joint, with a better-than-restaurant-quality burger.

Even cheaper if you don’t pay for the meat.

Which is what I discovered I’d done as I lifted the Burt Squirt’s carseat carrier out of the shopping cart and discovered that the package of hamburger patties had slipped underneath it in the course of our shopping trip, escaping being rung up with the rest of my groceries.

Yes, I suppose I am blaming my thievery on my infant. Who might have been sound asleep at the time the incident occurred. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I needed to get him home and feed him (we’ll ignore the fact that once I got him home he continued to nap in his carseat carrier for another hour before he requested second lunch) I would have gone back in Walmart and paid for my meat.

Or I might have; whether he needed to eat or not, the Burt Squirt turns into a whiny creature if the buggy isn’t moving at all times, and we’d have been at a stand still at the customer service desk while I paid for my meat. As he’d spend a good part of our shopping trip whining before he eventually decided to take a nap, I wasn’t keen for a repeat performance.

Then there was the fact that I’d already unloaded the rest of my groceries into the trunk of the car, including milk and yogurt and cheese and chicken and other items that really shouldn’t sit out in 80 degree heat while I resolved my little shoplifting issue.

And anyway, there was always the chance they might not make me pay for it anyway, as a reward for my honesty. Right? Like the time in second grade when I noticed my teacher had failed to deduct a misspelled word from my spelling test grade, pointed out her error, and she said in reward for my honesty she’d let my 100 stand.

That character award she gave me at the end of the year for honesty should be revoked.

Because I decided that $4.68 wasn’t worth anyone’s time.

The purloined sirloin now currently resides in my refrigerator, and Mr. Burt and I are looking forward to tasty Angus burgers one night next week.

Hopefully my guilt won’t turn the taste bitter in my mouth.

And hopefully no one employed by Walmart is reading this post, as they prosecute shoplifters. How many years did Jean Valjean get in the Bagne of Toulon for stealing bread? (Only he did it on purpose. Because he was, you know, starving.)

A few friends have inquired as to how the furry four-legged member of the Burt family is coping with having not been the center of attention in our household for the past eight weeks.

The two hairballs I’ve found in the past seven days sum up Miss Dorian Gray’s feelings. (My feelings on the hairballs are best summed up, “Seriously, Dorrie? Hairballs? Now? We’ve had you for four years and you’ve never had problems with this before. Did you feel left out of the part of life where I spend all my time cleaning up someone else’s puke?”)

(Question for the kitty mamas out there: Should I be worried that Dorrie has suddenly started having hairballs, or is this just part of the feline aging process?)

Before you click away in disgust, let me assure you that there is more to this story of Dorrie than slimy wet hairy bodily emissions. And I did not photograph them. (If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might have been repulsed by one or two images last week.  Clearly I don’t know the limits of polite photo netiquette.)

Prior to the hairballs, I actually had the naïveté to think Dorrie was starting to like Liam. Sure, there was that moment last Saturday when she was sitting atop Mr. Burt’s dresser and I held Liam up to look at her, and her response to his intense, interested gaze was to hiss at him before backing away from him in terror. (Liam was unimpressed by this show of feline ferality.) But even hissing and cowering are behavior improvements. She’s long since gotten over her initial reaction of being pissed off at Mr. Burt for bringing this new pet into our home and her indifference to me, having realized she gets even less attention when she’s being disagreeable, and in addition to acting out the most pathetic bids for affection and attention (literally throwing herself at our feet), she’s lately begun to spend a lot of time in Liam’s room; I go in during the day to put his laundry away and find her curled up in the corner behind his door, or perched on top of the bookcase, staring at the crib — occasionally, while Liam is in there, napping. Or, if the door is shut, when I get up for the middle of the night feeding I often find her perched outside, waiting for me to open it.

Can you believe I actually harbored the notion that she was keeping watch over this little person whom she secretly liked and wanted to see?

Apparently, I’d begun to believe Dorrie was a dog.

It wasn’t until I went to wake Liam on one of the mornings he hadn’t actually woken me that I remembered Dorian Gray is, very much, a cat.

The bedroom door was already open when I got there, presumably pushed open by Dorrie (the house has settled in such a way that you have to pull the door just so for it to latch shut), who was sitting on the bookcase. Looking not at Liam, but at the window.

Or rather, through the slats of the blinds in the window.

Watching something outside the window.

With her hackles raised.

And making soft chattering sounds.

As she does when she watches…

…birds.

Doves, to be precise.

As you may recall, a pair of doves call our window ledges home each spring. Usually it’s the downstairs powder room window, which is concealed by a Yaupon Holly tree, but this year our doves’ nest and two eggs are ensconced in the ivy covering the nursery window. (I think it’s lovely that new life is beginning so near to where my baby sleeps and am convinced the mama dove knew this and chose it as an auspicious location to hatch her little ones.)

(Less lovely is the fact that the room where my baby sleeps is also the staging point for the violent act of destroying new life my cat longs to carry out, but there’s a life lesson in that, too. Namely, the ever-present reality of the food chain.)

I’ll let Dorrie keep thinking she’s on top for as long as she can.

Soon, Liam will be crawling.

Recently I had occasion to fill out a Very Official Form that required me to state my occupation.  (Said Very Official Form was, in fact, a claim for exemption from jury duty.  Yes — I got selected for jury duty three weeks after giving birth.  I could only laugh at the timing.  Actually, I didn’t laugh.  I darn near cried.  Until I read further down the form and saw that parents who are the primary caregivers of children under the age of fifteen are not required to serve.  Although I think as a new parent I would also qualify as not being of sound mind.  But I digress.)

Usually, when I must put my occupation on a Not Very Official Form, such as a new patient form at a medical practice, I say I’m a freelance writer, or I leave it blank, depending on how I’m feeling about my writing at that moment.  There was always the homemaker option, but before I had a baby, I never felt comfortable calling myself a homemaker, because homemakers are generally assumed to be stay-at-home moms, not merely stay-at-home wives.  But when I was filling out my Very Official Jury Duty Exemption Form, I was doing so as a new mom, so I happily filled in my occupation as homemaker.  (Even though writer equally applied, as I was getting lots of rejection letters at that time, which a favorite writing teacher of mine always said makes him feel like a real, working writer.)

Fast-forward two weeks, to yesterday.  When, if I’d had to fill in my occupation on a Form of Any Kind, Official or Not, I would have had a meltdown of Chernobyl proportions.   Which I did anyway.  Well, maybe not on the scale of Chernobyl, but there was smudged mascara.

You see, I had to go grocery shopping.  I had to.  If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have anything for dinner.  (Actually, I’m now realizing we had stuff for Sausage and Peppers Rustica or Four Cheese Ravioli with Marinara; I stocked up on that stuff pre-baby for just such a situation as this.)

As you can probably guess, I didn’t make it to the grocery store (and I didn’t remember I had stockpiled for a nuclear holocaust) because I was having One of Those Days with Liam and couldn’t find five spare minutes to make a grocery list, because I couldn’t find five spare minutes before that to to put together a meal plan for the week.  Because the baby wouldn’t take a nap or go in his swing or let me hold him without changing positions every two seconds and crying or stop nursing.

Around noon, I did make it upstairs to the guest room, where Mr. Burt works.  And proceeded to cry.  Louder than the baby.

“Here,” said Mr. Burt, “let me take Liam for a while.  You need a break.”

I did need a break.  “But I don’t deserve a break,” I protested through my tears, withholding Liam from my husband.  “I haven’t done anything today to need a break from.”  I felt guilty for the shower — complete with leg shaving — I’d managed while Liam cried in his bouncer chair.

Mr. Burt looked at me like I didn’t qualify for serving on a jury on grounds of not being of sound mind.  “Haven’t done anything?  You’ve taken care of Liam all morning.”

“I’ve only nursed him and changed his diaper.”

A milder version of the look that said I was crazy was accompanied by a crooning tone of compassion.  “Honey, all he does right now is eat, poop, and sleep.”

This should have made me feel better, but more tears fell.  “Today he doesn’t sleep.  And I need to go to the store or we won’t have anything for dinner.”

“But you’ve been working hard,” said Mr. Burt.  “You deserve a break.”

So I took a break, even though I still didn’t feel like I deserved it — failed homemaker that I was — and the five minute drive to Arby’s for lunch cleared my head.  Mr. Burt was right.  Only nursing is a ridiculous way to look at it.  Newborns nurse 8-12 times a day.  For 20-30 minutes minimum each time.   That’s a full day’s work.  A full-time job.  And if Liam’s fussy, it doesn’t mean I fail at babies.  It just means he’s having a bad day, like we all do.  Or gas.

When I got home, Mr. Burt echoed my thoughts.  “You’re trying to fit Liam in around your old housekeeping routine.  Now you have to fit all that stuff around Liam.  He’s your job now.”

“The job I have no control over,” I said.  “As a writer, I’m used to having control over everybody else.”

Mr. Burt grinned.  “For now, Liam controls us.  It won’t always be that way.  But for now, if the other stuff doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter.”

I felt better, and didn’t cry as I said, “The grocery shopping has to happen.  We have to eat.”

“Well, yeah,” Mr. Burt acquiesced.  “But we can go out to eat.”

So we had dinner at Chili’s(where I forgot to pick up my credit card).  Then I made a meal plan for next week.  And a grocery list.  And today I got myself together before Liam woke up, then fed him and got him dressed, and we were out of the house by 9 and home with more than a week’s worth of groceries by 10:45.  The rest of the day, I’ve managed to make the bed, run the dishwasher, bake muffins, and cook dinner around Liam.

Oh — and write this blog post, of course.

Today I was a homemaker (as I was yesterday, whether it felt like it or not; though getting four loads of laundry washed and dried, if not put away, helped).  As long as I’m home with my family, I’m a homemaker.

Maybe tomorrow I can be a writer, too.  I could stand to be in control of a few people.