I did something yesterday that I very rarely ever do...took three kids to the grocery store. There is a reason why I very rarely do it, but I will get to that juicy part of the story later, for now I will start at the beginning.
Saturday morning I was busy getting my house ready for yet another one of my famous home parties (I still haven't kicked the habit yet), cleaning, cooking, setting out chairs, etc. My kids were very excited because everyone who was coming to the party was bringing between one and four children! It was a very good morning that ran into the early afternoon. The afternoon however was going to be even more exciting as I had been planning on taking Grace to the local movie theatre to see the original screening of Cinderella! She was so excited, the fact that two of the families from the party were going with us was the icing on the cake for her! I still had two little boys to worry about though as I really didn't think they would want to see that movie. I found Mark a playdate (with the son and husband of one my party/movie friends) and thought that Natalie would be able to take care of Will while we were gone (Greg is out of town, just in case you were wondering why in God's green earth their own father couldn't have looked after them). It ended up that Natalie was out in the field with the horse when I was hoping she could watch Will, so I asked him if he would like to go...and of course he said yes! He had never been to a movie theatre before, so he was so excited for this new adventure! The party wrapped up at about 1:30, the movie started at 2:00 and of course I had to pack up three kids, drive into town, drop Mark off at his friends house and get over the the movie theatre before we missed the any of the movie. I made it there at 2:03 p.m. We ran into the theatre hoping to have not missed anything good yet, and lucky for us we live in a very small town where the theatre owner waits for everyone to get there before he starts a movie!! By that I mean he finds out if anyone is waiting for other people to show up and then waits for them to get there!! Only in a small town! We bought popcorn and drinks, found our seats (which were not hard to find since the only people in the theatre were Deanna and her daughter - Little Natalie - two of the people we were going to the movie with) and waited for Joeanne and Madison to arrive. When the movie finally began, after the owner knew everyone had arrived (another group had arrived as well, to make approx. 10 people), it was about 2:20 p.m. I guess I had lots of time to get there after all!! Will loved the whole movie theatre experience...eating popcorn, drinking pop, checking out the bathrooms, the consession, the doors that lead to the lobby - all of this during the movie of course - and Grace loved it simply because it was Cinderella. When the movie was done, we were planning to go to a Home and Garden show that was going on in town, but figured we only had an hour so we would maybe check it out the next day and we headed to a big garage sale going on about two blocks away at the Elks Hall. Deanna and I walked with the kids - in the freezing cold, snowy mid-April weather - to the garage sale and saw that there was not a single car to be seen...hmmm? We tried the door anyway and there it was, tables upon tables of stuff for sale! The kids quickly found table full of toys and I spotted a few bikes and one fabulous scooter for Mark. Deanna and I walked around a chuckled at some of the items for sale. Grace bought a small gold clutch for her dress-up box and I managed to get the scooter for half price - $5.00. I scooted it back to where my truck was parked and we headed off to pick up Mark from Deanna's house...this is wear it gets interesting. We arrived and of course my other kids told him just what we had done...gone to the movie theatre...and that big bottom lip of his started to tremble and a tear welled up in his eye and he was upset that he didn't get to go. Honestly, I didn't think he would want to go see Cinderella! After the kids played for a while and I had a visit with Deanna, I packed up the kids again and told them we would go to rent some movies and get some snacks! Mark was not only upset by the whole theatre thing, but he was now very tired which became very apparent to me when he was almost fist fighting with Grace as they piled into the vehicle. We drove to the store were they rent movies and the kids happily picked out two movies each - thought technically Mark got three because when he picked up "The Goonies" I was so excited and made him get it so that we could watch it together!! I got two movies for myself, we paid and set off for some movie snacks. Mark wanted to go to the gas station to buy the treats, but I explained that the grocery store would have a better selection and would cost a lot less - though in this small town of ours, the one and only grocery store can charge you just the same as a gas station for chips and pop! The fact that we would be heading for the grocery store instead of the gas station made my already lip trembling, tear welling, upset son even more so...and it makes for the juicy part of this story...we arrived at the grocery store, pulled into a spot and before I was even out of my seat, two of my kids had jumped out of the vehicle, leaving me to retreive Will from the back seat while I made sure the other two weren't killing each other in the parking lot. They were already pushing and shoving and yelling at each other and the thought of leaving them in the truck crossed my mind, but I didn't want to take the chance that Grace wouldn't be breathing when I returned, so I grabbed Will's hand and told the other two to smarten up and follow me in. I grabbed a cart and Grace jumped right on the end of it - something I don't mind, if she is the only one with me - which them made Mark jump on the side of it and made me say in my sternest voice "get off"! While I was trying to get these two off the cart, Will is over in the cart area pulling out the big red car cart because he is determined we will be taking that cart on this wild adventure of ours. I probably should have gone with my gut and used the big red car cart, but instead I went with what is "the right way" in the parenting world and stuck to my guns...Will ended up putting the car cart back and joining us in the normal cart...Grace still on the front, Mark still on the side and Will was now in the cart! We tried to get through the door but Mark wouldn't quite fit, so I made him get off the side and since this is not fair in a seven year old mind, he tried his best to get his little sister off the front. We stood next to bananas and I begged my five year old to not make me look like the mom who has no control over her kids (even though every single person in that entire grocery store who has ever had kids has had one of these moments) because all the people in the store would judge me and give me that what-kind-of-mom-are-you-who-can't-even-control-her-kids-in-the-store kind of look and I would have to hide in the cereal isle until my kids would smarten up and start listening. We continued on with Grace on the front and Will inside and we quickly made our way to the chips and pop isle to get what we needed for movie night. I then realized that it was almost supper time and in an attempt to not be the worlds worst mother that day, I decided that I should probably feed my kids something more than just chips and pop. Hotdogs or pizza, that was their choice. Mark wanted both and the other two wanted hotdogs, so hotdogs it was...and once again the big bottom lip was trembling and the tears were welling up in Marks eyes...because I told him that I was not buying both. We made our way across the store to buy some buns for the hotdogs and ran into one of the nicest ladies I know from Kids Church and she was asking the kids if they wanted to come to the Palm Sunday service and be in the kids concert and what she got in return were daggers shooting out of Grace's eyes, Mark begging me to just get going because he was about to burst into tears at any moment and Will (always the happy one) pointing out every veggie in the store and asking if we could buy everything in sight. I said good-bye to her, not promising to make it to the service and grabbed the hotdog buns. I turned to go to the till so we could just get the hell out of there and for some reason I picked the till next to the balloon display...wrong move! Will was no longer in my cart, but he was grabbing all the balloons he could hold and Mark (acutally being the responsible oldest child) was trying to put them back because he knows the rule of no balloons from the grocery store, but Will wanted no part of that! Grace was still somewhere on or around the cart at this point, daggers still shooting out of her eyes when Great Grandma Webb arrived on the scene. She came over to say hello and I am sure she was stabbed right in the heart by one of those daggers! Will was on the ground at this point crying because Mark had shoved him down in an attempt to put all the balloons back and when I tried to take the stupid balloons from Mark he lost his mind and strarted crying! Grandma tried to give the kids each a loonie for a treat (as if any of them deserved a treat at that point, but Grandma was just fresh on the scene), and when not a single one of my children took the money, I just took it, thanked her and said we will buy treats another day. The woman at the till had rang in all our groceries and took my card which wouldn't swipe...and I didn't have enough cash since I bought Mark's scooter earlier that day. I gave her another card and told the kids to get their little butts over to me that instant because we were leaving!!! When we left the store, the snow was really falling and for some reason my children were freaking out that the snow was touching them (you would think that the past six months of snow would have them used to it by now), and Grace couldn't get her door open and Mark had to wait for me to buckle up his little brother before he could get in. Once I had all the correct doors open, and all the kids in the right seats I told the older two to buckle their seatbelts so I could get this show on the road! What I heard from the back seat made me want to get out of my vehicle right then and there and leave the children in the Co-op parking lot "I can't buckle my seatbelt" came from my not-so-angelic-daughter who can do up her seatbelt faster than anyone in my family. The reason I wanted to leave is becsause I knew what was to come....a whole lot of screaming and crying and I just wasn't sure that my already frazzled mind could have handled it then. Instead of walking away, I drove away. She screamed bloody murder because she hadn't done her seatbelt up and the vehicle was moving. I just calmly told her to do it up...but she kept screaming and screaming and screaming, so I did what any good mother would do and scared the crap out of my kid by slamming on the brakes! She flew forward and in between her sobs and screams, she then managed to get her seatbelt buckled. That always works! I didn't realize however that slamming on my breaks would cause my case of diet rootbeer to open up and spill all over the floor of my truck on top of the bags of chips and hotdog buns! The rest of the drive home was spent listening to Grace scream at Mark to stop looking at her and his giggles from behind me. I did my best at ignoring her the whole way home and when we finally arrived and pulled into the garage I saw what any dog owner dreads to see...the garbage was tipped over and the bag ripped open...great!!! Once the garbage was picked up, kids were in the house and I had picked up the rootbeer from the truck floor I went into the house and started to hotdogs to boil. We put on a movie, ate some hotdogs and chips and by 8:00 p.m. I had three kids in bed and I climbed into my bed to watch a movie of my own. Finally...peace and quiet!
SJ
Day Two of our San Francisco adventure stared with a very early wake-up call…my bladder! 5:30 a.m. and I had to pee (now I have to say, I didn’t have to get up any other time through the night, so that is a good thing), and once I got out of this rock hard bed I have to sleep in, I didn’t want to get back into it. Greg says I am like an old lady and maybe he is right about that – an 86 year old trapped in a 34 year old body – but what a spunky 86 year old I am! Since there isn’t much to do at 5:30 a.m. in San Francisco (at least not much that I know of), I decided to shower and go to the hotels gym…yes, I actually brought my running shoes and sweat pants so I could take advantage of this facility. Down I went to the gym with my book in my hand, thinking of course I would exercise in style like I do at home…think again! I stepped into the gym and saw that all of the machines were standing upright, none of them were recumbent bikes like I have, but that is okay because a bike is a bike, right? Wrong! Apparently I haven’t really been exercising at home all this time because I could feel my legs burning after just five minutes on this upright bike…unlike the good feeling in my legs after 30 minutes at home. I made it for about 15 minutes on the bike and then another 15 on the treadmill, just so I didn’t look like too much of a loser coming out of the gym only minutes after entering it (just in case there were any people watchers in the hotel lobby at 6:30 in the morning). Our next stop after getting ready to go out for the day was to our free continental breakfast which was not that good, so I ended up having a banana, a piece of toast and a chat with my new found friends – two sweet 80 something ladies who were on a tour bus leaving for Rio tomorrow morning. After chatting with my friends we set off for the day and walked down to Fisherman’s Warf, where there was nothing happening since it was only 7:00 a.m. We walked around aimlessly until we found a tour place where we inquired about a city tour (and the lady told us we would see the “Full House” house, which made my day!), and we decided that we would take the two hour tour that started at 10:00 a.m. Now we just had to find something to do for the next 2 hours and 45 minutes!!! At 9:00 the double decker bus rolled to a stop and we quickly ran to see if was time for the tour to begin…nope, we still had an hour to wait…ugh! The fantastic tour guide told us we could relax in the sunshine on the top deck of the bus if we wanted until the tour began, and because we had absolutely NOTHING else going on, we did just that. We sat an people watched for the next hour until the tour started. If you are ever planning a trip to San Francisco, I would highly recommend this kind of tour around the city. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Nob Hill, China Town, the Tenderloin District, Union Square, The Painted Ladies (houses), etc., etc. Once we rolled back into Pier 39, we had just enough time for a quick lunch before we would then board the boat bound for Alcatraz!! We went on the tour among the hundreds of other tourists that decided today was the day they wanted to visit The Rock and is a very interesting place to see! 
