Did I Join the Circus?

Sometimes I feel like we are a circus act when we go shopping. The boys are quite a handful sometimes...

Yesterday we made a trip to Sam's Club. I thought that I had prepared myself, packed snacks, plenty of diapers, and wore pants that don't usually fall down (I need to start wearing belts, I guess). Well, Curtis decided that he could not walk (he usually loves to walk beside me, holding my hand) and proceeded to pitch a fit even before we entered the building..."Mommy hold you!" - his favorite phrase when he wants to be in your arms - over and over again, through the tears and screams...I hurried over to the deli to get a drink - they like the lemonade, right? Everyone we passed seem to want to console Curtis and tell him that "it's OK..." & "Oh, don't cry. You're the big brother. Look your brother is not crying..." Well, the lemonade didn't work...We went into the family bathroom (with the help of a construction guy holding the door open so that I could manuever the cart in, and a lady stopping me to ask if I wanted her to watch Ben while I was in there - um no...I told her I had to change his diaper). It was a rather loud bathroom trip! Crying and screaming....

I finally just held Curtis as we made our way through the store, trying to drink my treasured Coke Zero, pull up my shorts here and there as they fell down with Curtis on my side, and steer the cart...Ben was pretty good with both snack traps by now, chex cereal and Kix flying here and there, an occasional drink from his sippy cup as mom picked up the snack trap after he threw it overboard...Curtis finally stopped crying until we neared the bakery - "COOKIES!" At this point him and Ben both started yelling and shouting (the happy kind, at least), and thank goodness they did have cookies! A few minutes of peace and a chance for my arms to rest while they munched in the cart and I shopped as fast as possible.

I decided that I wanted to get another pair of cheap shorts that they are selling there right now (I wore the pair I got last summer almost everyday), so while I sorted through all of the piles of sizes, Curtis climbed around the stacks and unfolded as many clothes as possible. A few customers looked a little worried that I would let him crawl around them...Maybe not good shopping etiquette. Oh well, I tried to put the stacks back together, brush off the chex and kix that Ben had thrown over, picked up the straw from my drink and another sippy cup off the ground, pulled up my shorts, and we moved on.

After a couple more sample smears on both of their outfits, only a few spills of drinks and cookie crumbs all over their faces, we made it to the checkout. Curtis cried to be held again, so I picked him up as we loaded the groceries onto the belt. Ben loves to grab those divider sticks and started hitting the guys stuff behind us, from his cart seat. The checker LOVED the boys and probably spent 10 minutes just conversing with them - pretty cute - Ben was chattering in his baby gibberish with her for a while and said "Hi" for the first time, and "Bye" to her when we left. But, I felt pretty self-conscious of the man behind us cursing for picking the slow lane, I'm sure...Anyway, I went to get one more refill on the lemonade...Ben started throwing the groceries out of the cart, Curtis was crying to be held...Some lady stopped me and said "You have a BLESSED LIFE!"

It is true. I love these crazy adventures with my boys...The Coke Zero helps, I think.

(Picture is of Curtis in the stuffed Easter bunny bin that I threw him into at Sam's Club. Hopefully he didn't get any cookie slobber on them!)