No pictures----Just talk!

Rarely do I have a day that makes me want to find the nearest cliff and jump off.  Today, I had one of those days!  This morning, I took Rylee to a local church's VBS.  I came home and piddled for a while (yes, I just used the word "piddled") before heading back up to get her at noon.  For some reason, I felt the urge to drag all of my children to Hobby Lobby AND the grocery store.  I'm still questioning that decision.  I'm not one of those people that never goes anywhere because I don't want to wrestle with my kids, but I do try to limit trips with them to stores with breakable objects and food.  They have never broken anything, but they are very well known for randomly chunking food items into the basket without my knowledge.  So...I try to do my "breakable item" shopping and grocery shopping in my so-called spare time (whatever that is).  Maybe that explains why we never have groceries!  Ha!  Anyway, I happily headed to Hobby Lobby with hopes of having a decent afternoon.  I took the kids to Taco Bell, because I was trying to avoid any place with a Playland!!  I knew we would never make it to Hobby Lobby if there was a Playland in sight!  I don't know if my children got full or not, because when we started to walk out of the door, I turned to look at the table to make sure everything had been thrown away and all I saw were mounds of taco meat (or whatever they put in those tacos) under the table.

So destructive.....so very destructive.

Yay----it's off to Hobby Lobby we go!!!  I love that store!  Really---I do!  Rylee has a sleepover coming up, so I am in full force planning mode!  And I love Hobby Lobby when I am in planning mode!  However, after .2 seconds of stepping in the doors, I knew it was a mistake!  The baby immediately started fussing and Rylee and Brock were pretending that the entire store was an obstacle course!  I saw a few people I knew and a few people I didn't know who kindly commented on how adorable my children were.  That was very, very sweet, but at the moment that those kind people were cooing over my kids, I was envisioning knocking myself out with one of those tall, breakable vases or jumping into the fabric never to be seen again.  If you ever watched Lizzie McGuire a few years ago, you will remember that she had this little cartoon that sat up on her shoulders that acted out all of the things she envisioned doing, but would never actually do.

I have one of those.

She was in full force today.

I tried to keep pushing on.  The baby was still randomly fussing here and there, but nothing too bad.  I decided to fix him a bottle to prevent any crying.  He drank his entire bottle sitting straight up in the front of the cart. 

Very uncomfortable, I am sure.

But, I was on a mission.

Just as my children began knocking things off of shelves, I noticed this woman with four kids trailing nice and quietly behind her. I thought for a second that I may just replace mine with hers, but I figured someone would eventually notice.  So, I decided to keep mine.  I did, however, do the ever so horrible parenting approach and COMPARED those children to mine!!!!

"Look at those nice boys listening to their mommy and not causing any trouble."

"I know, Momma, but they just don't look like they are having ANY fun in here!  Me and Brock are having SO much fun!  What those boys are doing is REEEAAALLLLLYYYYY boring!"

That comment earned my precious Rylee a square to stand on.  She was instructed to stand in the square and not move until I did.  When I moved,I told both of them to get on either side of the cart and not let go. We got to the next little section of the store where Rylee turned the "stand on a square" discipline approach into a game that she and Brock could play. It quickly turned into a competition to see who could jump more squares at a time.  People were starting to stare and I was needing more deodorant, so I just decided to give up.  I quietly grabbed my children, pushed my cart to the service desk, and told the cashier that I was going to have to leave and I would appreciate it if she would put my things back up on the shelf for me and I would purchase them at a later time.

We left.

I wanted to come home SOOOOO bad, but I really needed to go to Kroger.  I told the kids we were going in there, and if their behavior was anything like Hobby Lobby, I would have to come up with some major punishment.  We pulled in the Kroger parking lot, and Brock started to have a screaming fit.

"What?, I asked.

"You said we were gonna go get some krogurt."

"Krogurt?"

"Yeah....you said we were gonna get some krogurt if we be good."

Hmmmmmm.........somebody got a little confused.

"First of all, Brock--I said we were going to KROGER, I said nothing about krogurt, or yogurt as I am sure that is what you must be referring to.  Second of all---at what point are you thinking that you have been good?"

"Ummmm...that point back there."

They didn't get any yogurt today.

We finished the Kroger trip, but not before my children decided to get BEHIND the checkout WITH the cashier and try to "help" her. 

She wasn't amused.

Neither was I.

I'm pretty sure I am still being talked about as "THAT MOM".

After Kroger, we ran over to my dad's house.  I told the kids to stay put in the car and I would be right back.  My dad went out to talk to them.  He came back in and informed me that Rylee said I had been mean all day.  I didn't really respond to that, but Lizzie appeared.

She thinks I need a vacation.