We got out today….

I love my house.  It is a great house. HOWEVER, I have spent a little too much time in this house.  I decided that I need a break from our every day routine. It has been so cold that we just do not get out.  The kids didn’t even want to go out and play in our last round of snow.  I think my attitude about the cold weather is rubbing off on them.  They just keep asking when they can go out in “flip flops and no jackets.”  Oh, the blessed day that I can clean our mudroom free of all the jackets hanging on the hooks and boots filling up my shoe bins.  It’ll be nice.

But, until then, I had to decide if I wanted to stay in the house another day or try and get out.  I had a grocery list and some Easter apparel to purchase, so I talked myself in to a trip to Super Target.  After finishing up with school, straightening up the upstairs, and taking a shower, it was noon. Thirty minutes later, after twelve times of telling kids to put on their coats, and that YES they had to wear socks and NO we aren’t getting a snack for the car ride to Target and MACK you should probably try to tee-tee before we get in the car and NO Molly you can’t bring that phone, baby doll, jumprope and baby carrier…….UGH.  I only asked myself twice if I was sure I was up for this.

We braved the cold windy weather and made it safely to Target’s Cafe where I purchased some pizza and a few slushees.  Mack wasn’t hungry, he said.  Probably because Molly deceivingly opened up some pretzels and fed him the entire time I was in the shower.  I wondered why everyone left me alone.  Ruby scarfed her food down and then whined that she had to go potty.  Molly, on the other hand, sllllooooowwwwllly ate one little bite after another and people-watched while I continually reminded her that we were not here for a leisurely lunch…eat up so I can get this shopping done, child!  I knew my time was running out with Mack.  He should nap every day after lunch, so I was already pushing it.  Expecting him to last through shoe shopping for the girls and grocery shopping was surely a joke.  And surely, it was.

I started with shoes.  Ruby tried on a couple, and I noticed a HORRIBLE smell.  I couldn’t decide if it was her feet (she was wearing a pair of boots that Molly usually wears with OUT socks) or her gas, which she continually kept passing.  Then, she’d get mad at me for laughing.  The whole situation was really funny though.  Molly was walking around randomly trying on the tackiest, highest heel that she could find any where near her size.  “Don’t you like this one?”  I told her that I didn’t like her in the heels.  She wanted to clarify…”So, you like the shoe.  You just don’t like it on my foot?” …. “Yeah, Molly.  Something like that.”

All the while, Mack sat buckled tightly in the Target two seater buggy hollering out, “When is it my turn to walk to you?!!!?”  See, I was having the girls put on the shoes and then walk down the aisle and back to me.  He wanted his turn.  And he got it.  He strutted around that shoe aisle like he was hot stuff.  It was hilarious.  I don’t know why exactly, but I thought little boys would be ummm….what’s the word???….ummm…..disinterested in most things that I consider exciting.  Well, Mack is not that way.  I am sure he will grow to be just as disinterested in shoe shopping or purse hunting as his dear dad, but for now—he loves it. He helped me look all over that Target for a “big boy belt.”  And he had a FIT tonight when we made him take off his Easter outfit and new shoes.  He tried it on for Josh, and I have never seen him prouder.  It was soooo funny.  “You gotta see this, Dad.  You gotta see this.”  Then, after walking all around in the new clothes, I said, “Mack, we have to get pajamas on now.”  He fell apart. He told me he wanted to wear the new clothes to sleep and that he wouldn’t tee-tee on them.  Oh my.  When we went into the girls room and had them put on their dresses, he cried and said, “I want to put my new clothes on in here with them!!!!”

All of the kids just crack me up.  At the end of an exhausting day like today, I sit back and laugh at myself.  At one point during the trip—the point when they were high on slushee and started to get bored since we were done with shoes—I got firm with them and said, “LISTEN HERE.  YOU have eaten.  YOU have gotten some shoes.  YOU have a slushee.  NOW I have to do some shopping.  And I WILL GET IT DONE.  AND YOU WILL OBEY.”  It was ugly for a minute, but I talked myself out of running to the car with nothing but the kids a few times.  “You can do this, Kristy.  Just keep getting the stuff on your list.  You can do this, Kristy.”  And I did.  It wasn’t fun though.

It was good to have a day like this.  Just yesterday my sister sent me a link to a video about a new book called LIFT.  I have forgotten the authors name, but I do want to go get the book.  In the video you see the author with her girls.  She says stuff like, “I told my daughter one night that I was going to miss her…I just love who she is right now, but she is going to change and grow….”  BASICALLY, it was making me feel so sad!  I will NEVER have a 2 year old Mack Joshua (as of March 28th) ever again.  There is limited time left on me enjoying my 5 year old Ruby Elizabeth.  And Molly Lee will one day be a 16 year old girl that likes hanging out with her friends more than me….ISN’T THAT SAD TO THINK ABOUT?????  It’s good to think about every now and then to make sure I am appreciating getting to know these little boogers, but GOOD GRIEF!  I’d just lay in the bed hugging them if that was ALL I thought about.  Enter days like today.  If I did have a 3 year old Mack forever, I just might enter the looney bin or at least never get to potty alone ever again!!!!!

Days like today bring balance to my thoughts.  Sometimes I want time to stand still.  Just not when Mack has pooped on himself or when Molly has a glue mess all over the table or when Ruby is mad at the world or when a “simple” TARGET trip gets out of control.

We can’t freeze time, so we might as well move on with it and enjoy the days that we do have….cooped up in the house or maneuvering through TARGET.

I love my kids.  They are great.  If I could eat them, I would!

I think I will stay in tomorrow though.

Good night.