Double Time

Some days I feel like the kids haven’t been out of the house enough, so I try to be a good mom and take them out. Then I remember why we don’t go anywhere. We had three simple stops to make: we had to check on a friend’s house because they’re out of town, we had to get gas, and we had to make a (in theory) quick stop at the grocery store. We were gone two freaking hours. I don’t know why everything has to take twice as long as I think it’s going to.

First, we stopped at my friend’s house. All we needed to do was a quick walk-through. The kids, however, found it necessary to play with every toy they saw in the house. That caused me to run in a panic to put things away only to catch them going through a closet. I got Eli out of the closet, and by the time I drug Georgia out, Eli had discovered the piano. Crap. That stop took much longer than it should have.

Then, we stopped to get gas. Eli can’t just sit in the car. He has to “help” by washing the windows with that damn window cleaner. The problem is that he doesn’t use the squeegee part, so I end up with dirty water all over my windows and dripping down my car. Plus it takes him way longer to “clean” the windows than it does for me to get gas, so we have to sit there and wait on him to get done.

After that, we made our last stop at HyVee where I only had five items on the list. I chose to go to HyVee because they have those shopping carts that look like cars, and the kids will actually ride in them. Well, today when we walked in, there was only one “car” left, and a woman was already situating her five kids in it. Dude! She needed it more than I did. Georgia didn’t see it that way. She stood right in front of them and screamed, “NOOO! THAT’S MINE! I WANT IN THAT ONE!” I had to drag her away from them. It’s always fun when you’re child starts the screaming in the entrance way in front of all the cash registers.

The screaming finally subsided, but since the kids weren’t riding in the cart, they ran around like crazy people. There were tons of samples out today, and the kids went nuts over them, which I find really interesting considering they won’t eat at home. Maybe I should start putting all their food in those little sample cups. Hmmm . . .

So, anyway, two hours later, we walked back in the door, and I was exhausted. I think tomorrow, we’ll just stay home.