Family Togetherness

It all started out with good intentions.  We needed to go to Lowes and get a couple of things.  Being the GREAT parents that we are we thought we would make it a family trip.......................YA.  The drive over somebody touched someone else causing a horrible crying spell.  Aaron insisted that we TALK  and not put a movie in for the kids, so we spent most of the time telling our kids to be quiet and stop interrupting us.  I looked back and saw my oldest child thinking he was going to wear his wife beater tank top into Lowes......................some people might take issue with this, but I swear every mean boy I ever new wore a wife beater and so I'm pretty sure wife beaters have some type of evil influence on whoever is wearing them.  So I kindly explained this theory to my son and asked him to put on his scout shirt, which was in the car.....................oh ya, he was WAY excited, he gave me that look like, I'm so glad I got the crazy mom.  So now EVERYONE is frustrated or being EXTREMELY hyper!  We hadn't even arrived at the store yet.  We walked in and it began.  The baby started to cry, the kids took off in three different directions and I swear to you, Aaron TOTALLY DITCHED ME!  I followed the loud sound of our children who were trying out all the different toilet seats they had in the store, complete with sounds and facial expressions. I VERY CALMLY tried to get them gathered together.   They were having way too much fun to listen to their SWEET mother.  People around us are starting to stare.  Now my kids have all run over to the refrigerator section.  They opened EVERY single refrigerator.  Some of the fridges had fake paper food in them.................WHY.................my kids were taking it out yelling to each other what food item they had found and then fake eat it as LOUD as they possibly could.  The baby was still crying.  Aaron was very much MIA.  It seemed like I was getting eyeballed by everyone around me.  There was this nappy looking older guy with tattoos and a long dirty beard (not judging) that walked by and gave me this look like 'that is why people should only be allowed to have one kid'.  I swear that is what he said with his eyes!  The other looks were more like, 'Why doesn't she get control of her kids, man, if those were my kids.................'  So, now I could see Aaron was in one of the aisles nearby, trying his darndest to pretend he didn't know the crazy woman with the out of control kids.  I felt I had two options, one, grab all of my children by the ears, start crying and drag them over to their loving father, with my crying baby in tow....................nope, I didn't choose option one, I went for option two.  I turned around, and walked away.  I totally pretended like I didn't know my children.  I figured I could hear them no matter where I was in the store and Aaron would eventually HAVE to pass by them to get out of the section of the store he was in so I walked away.  I even looked at a couple of people like, uh, can you believe how out of control those kids are!?!  I went over to the Christmas section and checked out the trees and decor.  My oldest saw me escaping and ran over to be with me.  We walked the isles and enjoyed the PEACEFULNESS.  Then I saw my husband with other two children walking aimlessly around trying to keep them with him and looking all over for me.  I'm sure he was thinking something like, 'Why would she just take off, does she have any clue what kind of a struggle it is to keep these kids together and behaving!?!' :)  Option two was working out SO much better than even anticipated.  I slowly strolled toward my husband and saw him, very frustratingly, getting out his cell phone to call me, we made eye contact, and we, being seriously like one spirit, HE TOTALLY KNEW.  He smiled at me and didn't say a word.  I didn't even stand by them while he checked out, during which time my sweet little angels were opening and closing the gate they had to close the aisles off with and picking up every item they could and asking Daddy to buy it for them.  Oh what a great FAMILY activity that was.  Next time maybe we could take a trip to the DMV or something fun like that.  

Now, I know some of you will feel the need to judge me.  All I can say is come on by and pick up my kids, all four, and take them on a short shopping trip with you.  I guarantee you will totally understand and probably be very tempted to choose option one while with them.

   I also want to state that I love my children VERY much!  I'd just rather have shards of glass in my eyes than have to go shopping with all four of them.  Don't worry, I'm going to snuggle them and tell them how much I love all of them right now.