A trip to the store, a few groceries and one GIGANTIC headache later!

I could just post this picture and call it good as this picture (except for the dog this lady is walking and the crazy sausage hair she has going on-mine actually looked good... that sounds conceited, but I was having a good hair day and that doesn't happen often!), pretty much sums up how I felt and probably looked to on-lookers, even dropping a few things along the way when I decided to take a quick trip to the store for a few things... (I always have good intentions going into the store for a few things, but I usually come out with a whole cart load of stuff, like today! Oops, how did all that get in there?) "...No, honey I didn't buy the whole store..."

AND is it ever really quick with kids!? There's the loading and then the unloading from their car seats, and once you’re in the store, little arms automatically start swinging about, fingers trying to touch everything in sight; telling them to sit down a dozen times, and the sporadic crying throughout the aisles... music to my ears! And today especially, it seemed once I got one child calmed down, the other started wailing.... it's a conspiracy, I think! Most of the time my girls are actually quite well behaved in the store, (and I am not sugar-coating that at all, it's probably just because Madi is shy and Avery is still pretty young, or that I become a drill sergeant. In any case, I am hoping this episode was just a fluke and their good behavior in the store continues... ) But for some reason this trip they were out of control! (Ok, my version of "out-of-control" might be a little different than most. I tend to be kind of strict, my husband would say too strict with the kids. Even the slightest wiggling about, gets my nerves going! My husband is a lot more laid back. He has taught me how to relax a lot. (Wow, you sure get a lot of info about our family in that little paragraph!)

Anyway, as we get to the check out and start loading the groceries on the conveyer belt thingy, the cashier drops the gallon of milk on the floor and it starts gushing milk everywhere! Three Wal-Mart employees gather around just staring at it as it is just flowing out all over the place, all three waiting for one of the other two to pick it up. I was carrying Avery in my arms at the time and just kept thinking why are they all just staring at it gush out...Finally one of the girls, (sad to say they were all girls!) reaches down and picks it up before the last cup of milk spills out! They close down the lane and start cleaning it up around us. I put Avery back in the cart to pay for my things, and I can't find my debt card anywhere. I get frantic searching through my purse, my pockets and the diaper bag, flustered as I had just used it over at the mall, I hear this guy behind me telling the cashier that someone dropped their debit card. I look over and see my face on a card being passed from him to her, and instincly(is that a word?) yell, "THAT'S MINE!" Tired, irritated and blushing now, I profusely thank the guy, realizing I was holding it in my hand, as I was transferring Avery from my hip to the shopping cart and it must have fell. (Luckily for me, the guy hadn't noticed that the lane was closed and in the process saw my debit card!) Out of the corner of my eye, I realize the shopping cart is no longer next to me or my kids in it, they were gone!! I look around while yelling, WHERE'S MY KIDS?!?" Then this Wal-Mart employee calls to me from about 10 feet away telling me she has them. What a terrible mom I am! I was so worried about the milk, and my card being lost that someone could have rode off with my kids and I wouldn't have even noticed! Since the milk was everywhere they had to move my cart, to clean it up, in the process taking my kids without telling me! As if they couldn't see that I was having a break down already!!!

While loading the groceries in the car I had a mixture of emotions going on...gratitude for the guy who found my card, frustrated with Wal-Mart employees, and worn out being a drill sergeant with my kids. Thinking about everything that had happened, tears started streaming over and down my face. (It was just an emotional day!) But just as this is happening, I look over and see a mom coming down the parking lot with a cart full of kids. At first glance I saw three kids and I thought, oh bless her! But when she was pushing her cart and passing me by, I noticed that I had miscounted, there were four! (Not that four is a huge number for a family, but to go shopping with! I don't know how many kids we are going to have, but I think I would rather go shopping at 4 in the morning then to take all my kids on a grocery run! That would be frightening!) There was one child in the baby seat, one in the cart, one cute little boy holding her hand and another child stuffed underneath the cart laying belly down on the bottom rack... and you know what I did?

I laughed and then cried some more! I don't know if I was crying for myself or more for her, probably her. To think my headache was big, I can't imagine the amount of Excedrin she is going to need!