Beware the evil that lurks beneath!
“Please can we ride in the fire truck cart? Please, please, please, PAH-LEEEZE?”
It was only the second time I’d been out of the house by myself since bringing the boys home, although technically speaking, I wasn’t alone at all. I was outnumbered five to one, and the only reason I had gone out at all was because I was out of half-and-half. I can survive without a lot of things, but in those hazy days with newborn twins, I was pretty sure I would die within five minutes of waking if I didn’t have coffee.
On this particular day, when the half-and-half container ran out before my first cup was sufficiently creamy, I decided it was time to venture out to the grocery store, with five children under the age of six. It sounded like a good idea at the time, although I failed to account for the way the maternal hormones were playing with my reasoning skills.
I realized my mistake when I spotted the fire truck cart standing guard over the grocery store entrance. A single fire truck cart had the power to turn an ordinary trip to the grocery store into a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie. But my kids could not see the evil that lurked beneath the cheap plastic exterior.
“Please can we ride the fire truck cart?”
“Guys…” I stalled, trying to think of just the right way to formulate my rejection of their proposal so they would think it was all their idea.
“You said we could,” my oldest said.
“I did not!”
“Yes you did.”
“When?”
“The last time we were in the store, you said we could ride in the fire truck cart next time.” At what point did my children get old enough to remember anything I said?
“Why would I say that?”
“Because you love us,” Jonathan said, smiling. “And you like to make us happy!” All three grinned at me. They were playing dirty.
“Oh, alright…” I conceded.
“Yippee!” Jonathan squealed and climbed into the driver’s seat. Kya got shotgun. Faith dangled off one side, making the whole thing tip precariously. The twins, snug in their car carriers, were stowed in a metal cart where I pulled them behind me like two little outcasts.
I backed the fire truck cart out into the aisle. “Greeeeeeeeee!” It protested loudly.
“It has a siren!” Jonathan exclaimed.
I looked underneath to see if I’d run over a squirrel. The two front wheels spun in midair, hopelessly useless. They pounded “thubthubthubthub” when I pushed the cart forward a little.
I stopped. Five happy faces beamed at me. There was no going back now.
With one hand on the fire truck cart and one hand on the babies’ dinghy, I attempted to maneuver in a straight line toward the produce. The Neanderthal barely moved.
“Push, Mommy! Push!” I felt like I was back in the delivery room. “Go, Mommy!”
I dug deep into my repertoire of sumo wrestling moves and pushed into the fire truck cart with my shoulder, using all my energy to bully it into the aisle while dragging the second cart behind me. I prayed no one was watching me on the security cameras.
“You did it, Mommy! You did it!” The children cheered me on, although I barely heard them over my excessive panting and desperate gasps for breath.
“GREEEEEEEEEEEthubthub!” The cart screeched even louder now that we were going forward. An older lady, who was wasting a decade of her life picking out three perfect apples, glared at me over her bifocals. My two-year-old waved. She was a princess in her very own carriage, riding in her very own parade, pushed by a haggard mother who could very well collapse at any moment.
We maneuvered through the aisles with all the skill and dexterity of a real-life Hungry Hippo. Bread…gobblegobble…peanut butter…gobblegobble…milk…gobblegobble…bananas…gobblegobble…
“Mom! There’s a free sample!” Faith called from behind me, where she’d taken up the job of steering the babies after it became apparent that my ability to multi-task had not magically improved since having twins.
“We can’t stop now!” I yelled back. “I don’t want to lose momentum!”
Given the fact that I had nearly burst my spleen getting the big lug started in the first place, I was unwilling to dawdle. I had plateaued to a reasonable agony now that we were rumbling through the aisles. Free coffee could not deter me from my singular mission of getting out of the store without stopping.
“Grab some pasta!” I commanded.
“What kind?” Faith asked.
“Doesn’t matter!” I yelled back. She threw three boxes of orzo into the cart. Interesting choice, I thought. Kya clapped. I knocked in a couple cans of tomatoes as we whooshed by.
“Okay, we’ve got a turn coming up. Everybody hold on tight!”
“GREEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The cart protested.
It soon become apparent that whoever designed the fire truck cart flunked basic geometry. The turning radius of t cart far exceeded the width of the aisles, which I proved by bashing into a cardboard display of Oreos.
“Mom, you hit some cookies,” Jonathan observed.
“Thank you. Yes, I know.” I backed up the truck and tried again. The Oreo display, not being smart enough to move, got hit a second time.
“Did you mean to do that?” Jonathan asked.
“Not really,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Then why’d you do it again?”
Sweat beaded up on my forehead. I wondered if I could get an epidural for this.
“Let’s try it again, Faith!” I called. She tried to guide the caboose as I ventured out into the roomy aisle by the hot dogs. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a wiry little woman. She was coming right toward me, and she wasn’t stopping. Neither was I.
“Oh my goodness, don’t you have your hands full!” She cried. I gained more weight during my first trimester than she weighed soaking wet.
I tried to ignore her. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, I chanted under my breath, desperately trying to turn before I ran into the chest of sale-priced bacon. But she was persistent.
She put down a shopping basket full of Lean Cuisines and grabbed Faith’s cart so she could peer in at the boys, who were now wide awake. “Are these twins? I always thought I should have twins. Oh, they’re not identical! I think identical twins are so cute. You know, they’d look more alike if you dressed them alike.”
My cart had stopped. Stopped. The two front wheels spun idly until they stilled. A silent tear slid down my cheek. The boys began to whimper as the stranger poked her head into their space. “Where are their pacifiers?”
“They don’t take pacifiers,” Faith answered.
“What?” My new adviser took this as a personal offense. “Well, I’m sure I’d give my children pacifiers before letting them scream in the store.” She waved her hand in the air and said with a snort, “Better you than me!”
She sauntered off with her dainty little basket and left me with my beast. I imagined what she might look like with her twiggy legs sticking out from under a fire truck cart. It could look like an accident.
“Mom? The boys are getting hungry,” Faith said, interrupting my daydream.
“Oh! We’re almost done, my boys,” I exclaimed, leaning into the cart with my full postpartum body weight and channeling the dread of nursing twins in public into a heroic burst of energy.
“GREEEEEEEEEEEthubthubthub,” the cart protested. It was much heavier now, loaded down with groceries and diapers and about thirty pounds of chocolate, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
“I think we should just take what we have and check out,” I shouted back to Faith. She had the concentrated look of a race car driver trying to maneuver her way through the course without hitting a wall. “We’re in the home stretch, sweetie!” I said. But, I had forgotten to look where I was going. I turned around just in time to see the front end of the fire truck cart on a collision course with another shopper. The Hungry Hippo honed in on its prize.
“Watch out!” I yelled, trying to stop the cart. But the momentum could not be harnessed. The fire truck cart sped on ahead, its front end swaying menacingly back and forth while the useless front wheels spun madly.
The lone shopper looked up just in time. She jumped out of the way at the last second, but her pathetic little wire cart could not be saved. We rammed into it at full speed.
“Oh, Mommy…” Kya exhaled. She had never seen a metal cart fly through the air before.
****
My little wheels have no purpose!
The acne-flushed young man who escorted us to the checkout was both morose and apathetic, two qualities I suddenly found quite charming. He did not care how many children I had or how old I was or whether or not my twins were dressed alike. He did not mention the clean-up on Aisle 9, nor did he question me when I opened a bag of white chocolate truffles and began to consume them two at a time. He silently plunked us down in the check-out lane and sloughed off to the next menial task in his meaningless job. I wanted to hug him.
But the checker was tapping her fluorescent orange fingernails impatiently on the register, so I hurled groceries onto the belt as quickly as I could. Beep….beep….beep… The scanner kept time until the cart was empty and she said, “That’ll be $236.57,” and cast a look at my four-year-old, who was staring at a picture of Dolly Parton on the cover of a glossy magazine.
“Honey, don’t look at that,” I said as I lugged my diaper bag up to the counter, wondering how Dolly Parton was still making the covers of magazines.
“Mommy, that lady has really big…” he paused, searching for the right word.
“Yes, yes she does. Don’t look at them.”
“I mean, those are some really big…hips. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lady with such big hips.”
The checker smiled in spite of herself. I dug through the piles of diapers for my wallet.
“She probably had lots of babies,” he reasoned. Kya nodded.
“Uh-huh,” I said, distracted by the panic rising in my chest. For the life of me, I couldn’t find my wallet. A line of impatient shoppers watched as I emptied out a burp cloth, diaper rash ointment, a bag of Cheerios, diaper wipes, and five matchbox cars. No wallet.
I could feel the cashier staring at me through her blue mascara. “I don’t have my wallet,” I nearly sobbed.
The cashier blinked. She had scanned and bagged over two hundred dollars of groceries while my children caressed the candy bars and put brown paper bags on their heads and crawled on the floor on all fours and pushed all the buttons on the credit card scanner over and over again. She looked at me from across the conveyor belt. We shared a moment.
“Isn’t there any other way?” She asked. “Do you have a debit card?”
“It’s in my wallet.”
“Oh, right.”
We both stared at each other, silent and thinking. “I don’t think there’s any choice, really,” I said slowly. This was harder than a high school break-up.
“You could come back? I mean, I’ll wait for you.”
“No, no, the peas would be all melty by then,” I paused. “Besides, there will be other customers. Look, they’re already lining up for you.”
“I don’t care about them!” She was taking it hard.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at the cart full of neatly-bagged groceries. “I wish I could put everything back the way it was.”
“It’s okay.” She was trying to be brave, I could tell. “Just go. Go…”
I turned away. I wanted to look back, but sometimes it’s best to make a clean break. “Come on, kids.”
“What about the groceries?” They shouted over the rumble of the cart as we headed to the car.
I tried to explain, but they didn’t understand. Their questions ran together like a mantra.
“MomwherearethebananasMomwedidntgetanyfoodMomwhatarewegoingtoeatMomIwantabanana
MomwhatarewegoingtohavefordinnerMomimsohungryMomMomMommyMom!”
“Listen!” I said sternly, my heart still broken from the way things ended. “I need everyone to be quiet for just one minute, okay? Just get in the car and be quiet!”
The three older kids scampered into their seats without another word. I put my head down on the steering wheel. The small of my back was still sweaty and I had pulled a muscle I didn’t even know I had. Worse, I was out of half-and- half.
The car was strangely silent except for the sound of a baby sucking on his fist. Then a small, tremulous voice ventured into the stillness. “Mom?”
“Yes…” I answered in a tone that said I wouldn’t bring up bananas if I were you.
“I have a dollar.” Jonathan was holding out the dollar he had earned weeding Mrs. Smith’s driveway.
“And I have some dimes,” Faith added. She searched in her pocket for the four dimes Nana had given her for collecting snails in the garden, a penny per snail. “Is that enough?”
“Oh, guys,” I began, but Kya interrupted me. She was too young to understand what had just happened, but she knew when a collection was being taken. She held out a small paper cup filled with stale animal crackers from the church nursery. “I share, Mommy?” she asked. “I share?”
“Oh…”
“We’re sorry you had to leave the groceries. We don’t need bananas,” Jonathan reassured me. They all nodded solemnly.
“We’re not even hungry,” Faith added.
It took me a moment to regroup, to realize that only a wealthy woman could be so inconvenienced. Only a rich woman could be hassled by driving a fire truck full of groceries around a store only to discover she had left her wallet at home. I had been blessed with children to feed, blessed with food in abundance, blessed with money to pay for it. What a small thing it was to have to drive back home and feed my beautiful children with the “nothing” I had in my pantry. What a small thing it was to go without coffee, or to have to make a second trip to a store that had everything I needed and much that I didn’t. Only a wealthy woman could complain about such trivial things.
Only a wealthy woman needs to forget her wallet to remember how rich she truly is.
Battle Scars
OH, thank you SO much for this story. I really needed it after a hard day (can we say limit pushing, rule testing, and straight out defiance from my two youngest…boys.) It felt like I was reliving any one of numerous grocery trips. I’ll never forget the first time I went to the grocery store after my fourth had been born. I had a 6yr old, a 5yr old, a 2yr old, and a newborn. I wish I had a candid camera recording so I could show it to them when they get older and have children.
Wouldn’t that be great! When your kids call and complain about the day they’ve had with the grandkids, you can replay the tape. 🙂
Boy, can I relate! Mine are 2, 4, and 6, and I’m 36 weeks pg. I have had similar experiences. Even better, my three each need their own mini-cart at Trader Joe’s, so I am directing a cart parade through the whole store. The carts have these silly flags on them that are right at adult face level, so I have to make sure they don’t move to quickly and take someone’s eye out. The flags are fabulous at knocking jars off of shelves too.
My best shopping story is this- a few months ago, I was looking for a particular item, but couldn’t find it. I mentioned it to the cashier, who said that it might be in a special display that was about fifteen feet behind the registers. After checking out, I parked my cart at the front, time the cashier I was leaving it there for a minute, grabbed my 4 and 6 year-olds, and went to check out the display. When I came back a couple of minutes later, I looked at the cart and immediately realized that I’d left my two-year-old sitting in the seat! She just looked a little confused, but I felt HORRIBLE! I blurted out something about forgetting to take her out, and the cashier and bagger said something to the effect of, “It’s okay, we were watching her.” I nervously laughed and said something about Mama needing a nap, as I scurried out the door (with all three kids, this time).
Um, whoops, Autocorrect messed a few things up in my reply!
Oh my goodness! That is so funny (not for you, but for the rest of us!).
Wonderful story! I was caught from the start and had to finish it (though I should have been getting ready for the day hehe). A friend of mine shared one of your posts to the ladies at our church and I’m so glad I checked out your blog! Keep up the great stories!
Well, I’m glad you stopped in!
LOL this is sooooooooo funny. My daughter, 2 yrs old, is always wanting the car… I have taken her and thought, what am I going to do when her sissy comes? where is the room for the groceries with a baby cart too??? lol thank you for the preview of what it will be like!
Haha–sorry to bring you shopping anxiety! I hope your delivery goes well. Congrats on the new little girly in your family!
What sweet and stressful memories you brought back to me! I have EIGHT blessings . . . but the youngest is eleven years old now. You will never regret those sweaty, panicky, lovely experiences you are having now. NEVER. In years to come, those sweet sharing kids are going to reward you over and over for all the times you felt like crying and smiled instead (and even all the times you ended up crying anyway). I remember the time I made it halfway through the grocery store with my first two, who were two years old and two months old at the time . . . and the two month old, up on my shoulder, lost his large (nursed) lunch down my back, inside my clothes. Having the cart half full, and a 20 minute drive home, I decided to just keep shopping rather than begin all over again later — after all, the same thing might have been repeated! (The other shoppers must have thought that I smelled that way because I had no time for showers!) That two month old is now 28, and he still gives me a hug and kiss goodbye when he leaves for his apartment after coming home for Sunday lunch. The two year old is now 30, a sweet mama to her own baby, and I found this wonderful article from her . . . the rest are still home, and blessing me each day. Enjoy those sweet children. The years fly by!
Oh you sweet thing!!! I only have one baby and he is enough of a handful for now! What a truly inspirational Mother you are!
You know, it’s just as hard with one!!!
Tears of laughter! Love the story…and makes me think that a drop in center at the front of the store for kids to do an hour of crafts or jump rope would make mothers flock there to do the shopping! 🙂
I just read your story & appreciated it so much., I remember once when I had just had my first baby & took him to the store with me. He started crying in the checkout line & EVERYONE else in line started giving me advice & telling me what to do!!! I wanted to say leave me alone & don’t touch my kids blanket & try to comfort my baby! The nerve of some people:) Anyway, my oldest is now five & he & I have survived much advice (good & bad:). I totally empathize with you about taking your children to the store~getting them in the car is half the battle so by the time you get there you’re already tired.
~Blessings~
PS: I really admire you b/c I have 2 incredibly busy boys & you took 5 including infants..but hey gotta have the coffee:)
love this our lives could be one in the same
Oh, what a delightful way to start my day! A missionary friend of mine always says, “Look for the blessing,” when she’s had a rough time of it. You certainly did this. Blessings sent your way. gail
I’ve been there. I had my second baby not long after being able to stop carrying a diaper bag for my first. There is nothing worse than trying to remember to switch your wallet from your purse to your diaper bag back and forth. I remember the baby screaming because she was tired and hungry and my 3 year old questioning because I had to take groceries off the bill to lower it enough to be covered by the $10 I happened to have in my pocket.
I too could not survive without cream for my coffee. 🙂
Some things are non-negotiable!!!! I’m glad to find a kindred spirit.
My children were banned many years ago from ever going anywhere near those carts! They are evil! When I was younger, it was nothing for me to brave Wal-Mart with 5 or 6 little kids in tow. Now days I grab groceries on my lunch break because I’d rather take a bullet than take them all to the store! LOL
I know what you mean! It seems like it was easier when half of them stayed in the cart. Now, they all walk and I find myself spending half of my time at the grocery store counting heads and saying things like, “Walk with your eyes forward,” “Don’t run that lady over,” and “Please don’t eat that off the floor.”
I have been there and back. I had about 5 kids with me, and my daughter swallowed her dime and started chocking. I left the groceries and grab her and the other kids and headed for the emergency room. They exrayed her and saw the dime and was told it would come soon.
OH NO!!! That is worse. How scary! I’m glad everything “came out in the end.”
It sounds like you have a really wonderful son, although I don’t think you should sell him short. Uh, I mean, there is a typo. : “Jonathan was holding out the dollar he had earned WEDDING Mrs. Smith’s driveway.
.”
This one made me laugh out loud. (The story, that is) I’d now like 20 copies of the new book.
Ah! Thank you, Chris! I need an editor. 🙂 Thanks for pointing out the typo. If (when) you find more, let me know!
I hate to find humor at your expense, but thank you for telling this story, I laughed out loud as I read it. Thank you also for reminding us to see our lives in the proper perspective.
This made me think of a trip my sister-in-law and I took to Walmart one day. I was babysitting two special needs children (they were about ten and twelve but that just meant they were larger and more difficult to corral.) and she had her children (a two year old and twin babies), plus one.
I looked at her, right after I had left everyone to run after the twelve year old who decided that he wanted cookies and disappeared, and said, “Two special needs children, two two-year-olds and two newborn babies. What made Walmart seem like a good idea again?”
Of course, there were two adults in that situation. And I’m pretty sure we had our wallets. But I understand (to an extent). 🙂
I enjoyed reading this – great writing and I am beginning to love your kids!!!! mashallah! 🙂
I can’t even begin to relate to this – I only pushed out 2.
But even with only the 2 of them, they kind of took over the whole store – so much so that the one check-out person said to me – “Don’t worry, it’s their job to be naughty”
I miss my babies, miss the heartfelt hugs and notes written on tissues with lipstick…
You are indeed a very rich woman – suck up all of these moments – they pass way too soon!
It’s 7.29 am in Northern Ireland. I have tears rolling down my face.
Thank you.
hahaha….oh, the memories of grocery shopping by myself in the USA…pushing one cart with Asia and the food…and pullling another cart with the twins…. i laugh when I think of how many of the almost same experiences we’ve had… and sooo true…how blessed we are…we cannot complain!!!!
You make me howl with laughter and then you make me weep with gratitude. I can totally believe you are who and what you say you are. What boggles my mind is that you can produce writing of this quality given you are who and what you say you are!!!
I remember one time a friend stopped by, asked if she could help in any way. I begged her to just watch the kids until hubby got home from work so I could go to the grocery store ALONE.
I was so tired, I kept forgetting why I was in whatever aisle I was in. Then I’d remember something I needed that was on the other side of the store and go there, then find myself standing like a zombie in that aisle with no idea how I got there, how long I’d been standing there, or why I ever wanted to be there in the first place.
I hadn’t told anyone which store I was going to … we’re rural enough that the search radius for grocery stores we frequented is about 40 miles in diameter. It took me so long to finish shopping and get home, hubby was this] [close to calling the cavalry and reporting me a missing person.
Loved this story! Been there done that. I absolutely hate the fire truck carts!! They make me mutter bad words under my breath. ACK! I half expected you to go back in the store with the dollar and dimes and get a banana for each kid…or maybe a small carton of half and half?!? Or maybe stop by the condiment section in the deli and grab a fake creamer?
Thx for writing! I really enjoyed it. ♥
You had me laughing out loud literally! What a great post…and you are truly and amazing mom with kiddos like that! Love it! xoxo
I only have two kids, and get hot flashes whenever I have to go somewhere with them. Can’t imagine five. Wow. Good job. Is it ever true about the carts and unwanted advice. Great story. I have laughed so loud, I almost woke up my kids.
I had a shopping trip with my four very much like this one. Although I had my wallet, as I was paying, my two year old slipped off the top of the car and landed head first in front of a line full of people. I hadn’t even realized he was climbing on the car because I was emptying the basket and trying to keep my four year old from eating candy we hadn’t purchased!! I left in tears and swore to never shop with all four ever again! But I have many times since then!! We are indeed so blessed!
That’s scary! I always feel like the worst mother on the planet when my kids get hurt and I was standing RIGHT THERE. But, I have yet to figure out how to get the “eyes in the back of my head” program to work, so maybe that’s why!
I wish I had eyes in the back of my head for Little Man. I always joke that I know God has a sense of humor because me made my most fearless the most accident prone!
Great story!
Aw! What a great story. I totally understood everything you were saying. What a great meaningful ending.
Marz
http://www.hecticharmony.net
Beautiful. Beautifully written. Beautiful story. Beautiful message. I remember this past summer – 2 days before a hurricane was coming. I took my 37 week pregnant body to Target to load up. And oh did I load up. The final item scanned and I looked for my wallet. It was gone. I burst into tears. The lady behind me said “oh now sweetie don’t cry.” Don’t cry?!!! I asked if I could give the number to my credit card that I knew by heart. No. I was waiting for someone to take pity on me, to lend me money. But no. I guess I have more faith in others? Because that is what I would have done. Because I was pregnant with 3 kids in tow. And there was a hurricane coming and I needed the bottled water. Ugh. So the manager put everything aside and waited for me. I found the wallet in the car. Thankfully. It was next to my memory. I went aside and collected my pride and my things.
Oh no! That’s worse. I just couldn’t believe it. I’ve gotten into this habit where I ALWAYS check to make sure I have may wallet, after years of kids thinking it’s fun to play in Mommy’s purse. But I didn’t do it this time! Did you have your baby in the hurricane, or did he wait? I think that would be a great story!
I just love how perspective smacks us in the face some times! I have been that mom also. Well done. You have earned another ‘Mom badge’
P.S. Whoever thought we needed novelty carts at the store should be shot. Or better yet, dragged out into the road and run over by every mom with more than 2 kids.
We should start an anti-character cart revolution. I’ll start!
Great message! And I agree, even shopping w/a group of older children and just one toddler is enough to cause me to want to run out of the store and never stop. I love the part about the stranger and the inappropriate advice…. I consider these moments where God is asking to flew my self-control muscle by not falling on these people. lol
Very true! Sometimes I just want to say, “Didn’t your mother teach you it’s not polite to ask such things?”
I just feel bad for them and assume there is a large group of wolves somewhere complaining about their misbehaving children.
I hate those shopping carts!! My toddler always wants to get in but in a few minutes insists on walking then I have an empty fire truck cart! I wish some kind person would tuck those away somewhere so that the mom can decide to avoid that cart at all costs!
Glad you made it out alive and I bet you’ll be checking for your wallet before you leave for awhile! Great message at the end, def made me smile and tear up 🙂
I’m glad I’m not the only one! My kids usually have to get out and walk too because it’s gets SO heavy! And those things do not turn. I’m sorry, they don’t. There’s probably a hidden camera in every one and I’m a star on some reality TV show in China.
HAHAHA! They don’t turn they just kinda skid across the floor and I’ve taken out a few poorly placed display racks myself (M&Ms was the worst!) … who’s idea was it to do those stupid things?
I was right there with you as well, but I was laughing! 🙂 you are one brave woman!!! I have not taking my 19 month old and 5 month old out by myself. That means I haven’t driven in 5 months! But I don’t have enough courage! My son likes to fuss really loud and it would happen to me if I went out alone and he’d get so loud then my daughter would start fussing. Im just now taking them down our porch steps to play outside! It’s a slow process! I’ll be brave like you one day! By that time ill probably have more than two and it’ll be harder. If that would have happened to me I would have cried or felt like it!
I’m rally attached to my half-and-half or I wouldn’t have done it either! 🙂
I LOVE this! You made me laugh and cry at the same time! The kids taking up a collection just about did me in! Great writing 🙂
Thank you, Emily! They were convinced they had enough. It really was sweet.
I too was with you every step of the way! I was holding my breath hoping you would find your wallet… But truly, how blessed you are. 🙂
Do you know where it was? In the shoe closet, where Kya had put it in a boot. 🙂
Loved it, loved it, loved it!!! And you are one of the wealthiest women in the world! 🙂
Yes, I am!
Loved your story! I have had a few trips to the store like that.
I’m sorry. 🙁 Just kidding. Those are the days that make us earn our stripes, and really, God uses them to do wonders in my stubborn heart.
Definitely sleep-deprived!
I remember my first trip with two. I can’t imagine shopping with 5! You are a brave, brave (maybe sleep derived) woman!
I was with you every step of the way! Do you think people without children have *any* idea that going to the supermarket alone is a kind of holiday for mothers? ( I liked your positive spin at the end – pun intended!)
Grocery shopping alone?!?! Where is this dream world of which you speak? 🙂 The only trouble with shopping alone is that I still find myself stopping to count children!