Shopping

Yesterday I made the mistake of taking all of the kids to the store with me.  We had had a busy morning, I baked muffins and pumpkin rolls in the morning, we had made it to the 9:30 class at the gym, and I just needed to grab a few things at the store before we headed home. 

 So I found myself at Costco, in my sweaty work-out clothes wrestling 3 children who were all attempting to escape out of the cart.  Finally, I just let them walk.  It was slow going, and before long I was getting looks from fellow shoppers.  A few smiles and "oh your kids are so cute". A few impatient glances and one "Ugh..who's kids are these?" 

 Fair enough.  Kate had been walking slowly and crookedly in front of their cart, and they were probably feeling as impatient as I do when I am driving behind an obviously drunk driver.  I grabbed my groceries as quickly as I could but of course to get from the groceries to the checkout, you have to pass by the new Christmas Isles.  My kids ran straight towards the decorations and toys. 

Jonny immediately found a dump truck that made a loud noise and shook when you pressed the button on its side.  He recruited Ben and Kate and the three started pushing every single button they could reach.  Before long the whole isle was loud and vibrating.  An older couple squeezed past my kids.  They looked like they were doing some early Christmas shopping for their grandchildren.  I looked up to apologize for my kids standing in the way.  The sweet white-haired Grandma looked at me, smiled and said, "These are the golden years...you will miss your children being young when they are grown."  And with that, I simultaneously felt like laughing out loud, and crying.

It was definitely nap time...for all of us.