First Day of School and Shopping Disaster

Monday was the first day of school for Matthew (4th grade) and Josh (2nd grade). This year for Josh's school instead of a back to school night they had a back to school morning during the first hour before school started. Aaron was kind enough to stay home that morning to help me get everyone up and ready and to go with me to the back to school morning. We met Josh's teachers (there are two of them that team teach) and they both seem great and excited to be teaching. The kids were excited to go back to school. Josh was so excited that after we met his teachers, Aaron and I were walking out to the car and Josh ran over and pulled out his dry toothbrush out of his pocket and told us he ran out of time to brush his teeth that morning. I guess in his excitement he put his toothbrush in his pocket to use it later? Hey, makes sense to me--not really. Matthew was very excited to get on the bus and ran straight out to it when it came. He even had an Excellent day which we are very happy about. At the end of the school year last April to the end of school he kept having rough days (we think it was because all the stuff that was going on at home i.e. Josh in the hospital, me in the hospital, Noah premature, Jill in the hospital, Sydney premature, and lots of family in and out of our house). Anyway, I was excited to see he is happy and doing well once again. After the back to school morning Aaron went to work and I decided since I had cut my children down to three I could easily handle doing some grocery shopping. The last few months we mostly been living off my food storage which has dwindled quite a bit. That meant for this shopping trip I really needed to get a lot of things. I figured I could throw Noah in the front pack, Sarah in the cart and Daniel could walk along side me. That worked out until we walked inside the store and Sarah and Daniel spotted those kiddie carts with the two steering wheels. One similar to this:I absolutely detest these carts because they are usually sticky (I don't even want to know why), they are impossible to push and awkward to steer, and because they have smaller cart space. However, I was feeling pretty excited to have two kids back in school and I thought, "Well why not...I will try it." That was mistake number one!! As soon as Daniel and Sarah got settled and I had picked up a few things, Daniel jumped out and did the potty dance like I had never seen before and insisted he needed to go potty right then or else. I rolled my eyes and tried to pry Sarah out of the cart to take him. Sarah had other plans. She refused to get out of that stupid cart. I finally had to forcibly remove her and drag her kicking and screaming all the way to the bathroom to take Daniel. When we got out of the bathroom Sarah took off running one way, while Daniel took off running the other way. I had to make a quick decision about who to chase. It sounds like an algebra problem...two kids take of running in opposite directions going at two different speeds. Which one will get into trouble first?...Anyway, I caught up to Sarah and grabbed her and turned around to find Daniel had already crawled inside the cart--thank goodness. I started shopping again. It was once of those sales where you have to buy a certain quantity of something in order to get some extra money off so occasionally I had to stop and figure out how much stuff I had. During those times I was stopped doing my math, Sarah and Daniel decided to play Chinese fire drill with a twist. They hopped out of the cart and scooped up as many things off the shelves as they could. I tried to put back what they had grabbed while telling them to get back in the cart. They refused to get into the cart until I started walking away with it and tried to do a Dukes of Hazard jumping in the car door while it was moving. A few times Sarah's foot got ran over because she wasn't fast enough. After about 20 minutes of shopping I had had enough. I got the essentials and decided to cut my losses and restock my pantry later. I went over to check out and there was only one lane open with a line. Unfortunately, for some asinine reason the grocery stores stick all the candy at child level right by the check stands. I spent my whole time in line pulling candy bars out of Sarah's hands and in the process crushed a few of them. I blame them for putting them right there at child height!!! By this time Noah decides he is starving and starts screaming. Sarah is also screaming because I am pulling candy bars out of her hands. Daniel is also screaming because he is trying to tattle on Sarah and I am not listening because I am trying to calm Noah down while trying to put the candy bars back. It got bad enough the people behind me in line tried to help me out in which I thankfully accepted their help. With help I finally made it out to the car with all the groceries. I had never been so happy to strap everyone in their car seats so they could stay put!! Whew, so much for being easier with just three kids to take care of.