Three Kids At The Grocery Store

Yesterday Craig came home and said to me, "What's going on with the fridge?" Confused, I repied, "I don't know. What's wrong with it?" To which he said, "It's empty. There is no food in it." Funny Craig. I told him we were so busy on Saturday I didn't get to the store....well, since I seem to have had some memory loss since Chase has been born...well, except if Craig and I are arguing over something....OF COURSE I remember whatever it is then, because I AM ALWAYS CORRECT :) Anywho, I had forgotten about the last time I had gone to the store with 3 kids and vowed to never return with them, and headed to the store this afternoon. Can I just say now, again, in writing, that I am WILL NOT return to the grocery store with all 3 kids....or even just Cole....unless I can strap him in the cart.

The carts here in good ol' sunny California are half the size of those carts in Utah. The reason...I don't know. Maybe because...yeah, I don't know. I am not even going to try and guess why this is. Because I can't think of any GOOD reason why they would do this. All I know is that the carts here are totally lame....and the parking spaces are too while I am not on the subject. My car has so many dings in it now from their miniature parking spaces. They must make them miniature to match their carts. I LOVE Costco carts. 2 kids in front and the baby in the car seat in the cart. And they have nice wide parking spaces too that actually fit my SUV. I will still go to Costco with 3 kids.

So, back to my story, I head to the store with 3 kids in tow. I leave Chase in his carseat and put him in the basket of the cart (which means I have no room for the food, so I have to get a basket to put underneath to hold all of our food). That leaves my other two kids running around Trader Joes in pure craziness trying to find this DANG monkey called Jo-Jo. (The store provides the kids with suckers if they can find this monkey). Weaving in and out of people's carts, people having to stop their cart to watch out for them. Oh yes. Loads of fun. After being in there for 10 minutes and losing my kids at least 10 times, literally. We head out. The basket is packed full with produce and is very heavy so I tell the checkout guy I am going to let him pull it out because it is too heavy for me, to which he makes a snide remak of "Oh yeah. I can do it. I only get paid minimum wage to do stuff like that." Then, Cole sees the check out guy (who has long hair pulled back in a ponytail) and says to me, "Oh look Mom! Jesus! Hi Jesus!" To the guy. Thank GOODNESS the guy can't speak 2 1/2 year old. (Or at least he acted like he didn't hear him). I could not help but start laughing and smiling...trying to act like I am just smiling at my kids.

So we miraculously leave this store without anything unharmed or unhinged. But I am not done and need to go to another grocery store. So we had over to the other grocery store to pick up our mounds of yogurt. (And I mean mounds). I decide to just hold Chase this time on my hip. So losing my kids once, and only 1 broken yogurt on the floor later,(from Chase's sticky fingers)...we head to the front. Only for my kids to go CRAZY over all the candy at the front. Cole is trying to UNWRAP all the candy and running in around in circles, again literally, running in circles saying something over and over that I can't understand except that part that he says, "Look at me." The checkout lady says, "Boy, you sure have your hands full." Thank you lady. I JUST LOVE IT when people tell me I have MY HANDS FULL. Love it. So we checkout and head out. I make my kids hold onto the cart so they don't get run over. We get to the car, stop the cart and I go to open the door and look back and Cole is GONE. Seriously, the kid took off in 1 second. I look at Haley who is still standing at the cart and I ask her where he went, she says she doesn't know. Panicing, I race around the other side of the car to look for him, freaking out that he is going to get run over by a car or stolen...when I hear him talking. He ran 2 cars down to talk to some stranger sitting in his car with his window open...telling the guy we are going home. Oh this kid of mine.

So I am writing this now...SO I DON'T FORGET. That I WILL NOT take all 3 kids to a grocery store UNLESS the cart is large enough to hold all three kids.

As for the rest of our week...Chase is getting into and getting out of everything. He won't even sit for longer than 1 minute before he decides he wants to go exploring and starts army crawling across the floor. He is getting pretty fast too. He climbs out of the bouncer chair. I will strap him in and he stretches his arms out to the side to push himself up and then climbs out....he has gotten his foot stuck everytime, but he still keeps trying. He immediately goes for cords. Any cords. Vacuum cord. Cable cord. Computer cord. AAAAHHH. I raised the Exer-saucer to another level to prevent him from supermanning out of it...only to find his feet off the bottom of it AGAIN yesterday as he was leaning over trying to reach something outside of it. He is alreay pulling himself up to a stand too. All this and he is barely 8 months. He also has an oral fixation that I don't remember my other two kids ever having. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Maybe it is just because he is my earliest crawler and gets into everything. I am constantly having to survey the floor to be sure there are no small parts...which is extremely difficult to keep them off the floor as I have two other hellions.

Cole's funny saying this week--Me, "Cole let's get dressed." Cole-"I don't want to get on my dress!"

Haley, this morning came in and asked Craig if the Disney characters at disneyland were just pretend. And that is why they didn't talk. Now Craig is hoping he did not crush her dreams.

Chase has no funny sayings yet :) But he has decided that the best way to tell me that he doesn't want anymore food is to SPIT IT AT ME. All over me. All over my hair, face, clothes, his clothes. Feeding time is a real joy with him :)

The correct way to use a bouncer.


My Chase's way.