overly ambitious

Our morning plans originally involved just going across the street to Three Little Monkeys for storytime.

A very doable venture.  

But I had a few other errands I wanted to do that were also walking distance.

So I bravely {naively} loaded the kids into the cadillac stroller with everything we'd need for all our stops. I thought I was pretty well prepared - had diapers, waterbottle, money, phone, sippy cups...

3.5 hours later I collapsed in exhaustion on the floor, promising myself never to put myself through all that again.

But knowing me, I'll forget how crazy it was and do it again soon. So I'm documenting the play-by-play in hopes of preventing another ordeal. 

1st stop: Great Harvest. I had a free bread coupon I wanted to use, and I needed to get some treats for our downstairs neighbors to thank them for being so tolerant of my children's shenanigans (they recently threw all of their books off our 3rd floor balcony onto the bottom floor neighbor's BBQ grill. Probably sounded like a freak thunderstorm to them).  It's just a little over a mile away, so I thought we'd be fine.  Great weather outside. The kids should enjoy the ride. 

They did - for the first half. Then I don't know who started what, but somehow Brianna and the babies got into some kind of altercation. There was spitting, tongue sticking out, hand slapping, swatting, glaring, and yellings of "NO! STOP!" (the extent of the twins' fighting vocabulary).  Then someone lost their sippy cup, so logically stole their neighbors. That led to everyone losing their sippy cup privileges. That led to everyone crying. 

We finally arrived at GH and they were happy to get out. While I ordered our goods, the kids happily rearranged the bread displays. I know employees really appreciate that help with their interior design scheme. 

They sat down to enjoy their pumpkin bread samples. I thought I could slip into the bathroom really quick right next to them. Nope, they all insisted on coming with me.  Into the bathroom.  Really?  Can't I have 90 seconds of privacy?  Nope.   Getting them to leave their edibles at the table was a minor struggle. But I absolutely draw the line at food in the bathroom. Ew. 

Then I had 4 sets of hands to wash and dry. 8 hands total. 40 fingers. That takes awhile. And often the first child's hands have to be re-washed because they've touched something gross while the other two were getting sanitized. 

Grabbed the food and finagled them all back into the stroller, realizing we'd be late for story time if we didn't hurry. I had to half-speed walk, half-jog the mile+ to the toy store. Arrived just in time. Or I would've, but I had to de-crumb them from their bread samples. Such a mess. Brianna loved storytime - though would've preferred I sat with her the whole time. The babies made it through the first couple minutes only. Then I had to spend the rest of the time trying to keep them from destroying the cute store.  Managed to buy birthday present for nephew while there (complimentary gift wrapping in store! Done!). 

Then Brianna had to go to the bathroom. Had to drag kiddos over to the nearest one - at Paradise Bakery. Always fun parading through that cute posh-ish eatery in the middle of peak lunch hour.  All these business-people and classy girlfriends and trendy moms who have it all together with their perfectly dressed child(ren. But usually just one).  Then there's me... one squirmy toddler under each arm, calling out to a 4 year old either running way ahead or dragging far behind. Frazzled but trucking along happy enough. 

Next stop:  (because I couldn't just give in now and go home. Oh no. Must finish errand list).  Shopko for sore throat spray. I got very little sleep the past two nights because my throat hurt. Probably a minor cold.... since I have a runny nose and headache too... but I find that any sickness I have is best handled by being in complete denial about it as long as possible. Avoiding drugs is ideal, but I really needed the cepacol spray stuff to get some sleep.  So Shopko - stroller wouldn't fit through. I'm glad I live in a city where I feel somewhat confident my stroller won't get stolen when I leave it outside for 5 minutes.  Well it ended up being ten minutes because Brianna had a little meltdown inside Shopko because she couldn't sit in the basket. Their baskets are tiny and barely fit the twins (one in seat, one in basket).  I also gave in and bought headache medicine. At the checkout I'm pretty sure the cashier was trying not to bust out laughing as this frazzled mom with three wild children comes up to the checkout buying headache medicine. Yeah, ya think?!  Sheesh. You'd think I'd have that kind of thing on hand, but I haven't had to (or been willing to) take anything for a few years now (while pg and bfing).  The only thing I found was a bottle of Excedrin that I had to toss because it expired an embarrassingly LONG time ago. Not telling dates. 

Back into the stroller. Brianna's mostly calmed down. I wanna go home. She spots Costco and begs to go in for samples. I'm hungry and agree, against my better judgement.  We walked out of there 30 minutes later, having had all the samples twice, hearing 943 people tell me what a cool stroller I have (and want to tell me about how they're also a twin, or have twins, or know someone whose aunt's doctor's cousin's ex-boyfriend also had twins.  Wow, small world. So many twins. That's great. I don't care.)   The big mistake was the Vitamix demo. The lady insisted all of my kids have their own sample cups. Overflowing with green smoothies. Then on our second round, chocolate ones. So of course, we walked out of Costco with 3 kids covered in green and brown messes all over their faces and down their shirts. I probably had my share of food remnants on my body also. Oh well - at least everyone had lunch today!

Finally, we got to go home.

Wait, nope - left my waterbottle at Three Little Monkeys. Stopped there to grab it. Had to restrain children from getting out to go play in there again.  NO way munchkins.  Couldn't pay me.  Well, you could. But it'd have to be at least a 5-digit sum. Maybe 6.  I was pretty DONE with the day (and it was only 1:30!)

Crossed busy street by waving at cars to make them stop. Always awkward and unsafe. I didn't care. The crosswalk was too far away and my feet were begging for a break. It had been 3 hours of constant movement - usually pushing and/or carrying included.  I need a pedi bad. 

Arriving home, all of us a little beaten up, I somehow decided it was a good time to clean the stroller out. Maybe cuz I knew if I didn't do it right then, it wouldn't happen. So I unloaded everything and everyone and we hosed it down. Thoroughly. Of course soaking the kids in the process, but that didn't matter. They were headed for the bath anyway. We don't usually do mid-day baths - only night time. But these kids didn't get to step foot in the house - they were carried straight to the tub. I probably should've showered too but I just changed into my jammies. Felt so good to get out of the dirty sweaty clothes.

After I got the babies out of the tub I quickly got our laundry washing. Which also had to involve getting the last load out and hung up. But I had to move the dry clothes off the indoor drying rack first. Such a fun process. During which, I heard the front door open and close.  Then silence.

Uh-oh.

Of course I found them all running down the common hallway, down the stairs to the first floor. Brianna dressed, but the twins totally naked. At this point I contemplated just letting them continue their wild streaking and hope some kind neighbor would have pity and dress them. 

Wrestled them down. Diapers. Clean clothes. Full tummies. Into their cribs. Grateful for the sleep-inducing effects of nursing. 

Back out into the front room to find Brianna totally passed out on the couch. Not even a thumb in her mouth, which means she really truly passed out in a matter of seconds.

I joined her laying down.  Watched a little Ellen to make me laugh, and promised myself I'd write about this in case 20 yrs from now I look back and wonder what I did with the kids all day.