It's been one of THOSE days

Wow. That's about the only word I can think of right now to describe the day that I've had. Chris was going fishing this morning and had to leave the house by 7am and I had to go into work to do a hair cut so I had to leave by 7:30am...SOOO... Chris and I got up at 6:15 and the kids shortly after (this is way earlier than normal for us) and he helped me get them ready before he left and we all loaded up and were off! I was pretty impressed that we actually made it to my salon on time. Everything seemed to be going great. After I was done we loaded back in the van and set off for our errand running. I was feeling pretty good at this point because it was 9am and we were already starting our errands. If all went well we'd be done by noon and back home in time for naps. 

Costco was our first stop. We did our shopping and ate some food and were all feeling pretty good....until we got back to the van and realized my keys were still in the ignition and the doors were locked. BLAST! How in the world did I do that? I almost never lock my doors (I know I know) but I had all sorts of stuff in the van today that I was going to be returning/exchanging at various places and I  know how tempting toddler clothes are to criminals so I locked the doors. Why were the keys not in my purse? I have no idea! Thankfully we have AAA so I gave them a call and they were on their way. About 50 minutes later the locksmith (who by the way had the personality of a river rock) showed up. In case none of you know, standing in the parking lot with a shopping cart full of 4 kids for 50 minutes while you wait for a locksmith is less than relaxing and not how I envisioned spending my Saturday morning. When he arrived he called to see where I was parked then hung up on me while I was still talking because he spotted me, jumped out of his van and did not say hello, unlocked my door in a flash, then jumped back in his van an bolted without saying goodbye or anything. Wow. That is what I call customer service :/ 

Back in the van and off we go again to Sam's. No, I am not addicted to warehouse superstores. I don't actually have a Sam's membership but the girls were given a couple dresses that were the wrong size and my aunt gave me the receipts so I could take them back. Well, Sam's would not let me return them because I don't have a card with them even though I had the receipts. Great. Now we are stuck with two dresses we don't need. I am pretty irritated at this point because not only did we lose an hour in the parking lot of Costco but now we had wasted thirty more minutes driving and unloading and reloading for no good reason. So I'm running behind and it's a few minutes til noon. Oh well. The sun's out, it's a beautiful day, I have beautiful kids and now we're off to Target. Actually when we loaded back in the van I checked Neva's diaper first....dry as a bone! Sweet! 

Off we go. Approx 10 minutes went by before we all unloaded in the Target parking lot (we found a great parking spot and a giant kid friendly buggy just happened to be sitting right next to it...SCORE!). Wait...do I smell poop? Oh my gosh I smell poop. Good grief I just checked her diaper. Oh my gosh... is that poop coming out of her diaper and through her pants? Yes. Yes it is. I rush digging through the van trying to see if I have extra clothes. Now Liam is standing next to me jumping around like he's doing some sort of interpretive dance screaming "I gotta pee!". "Ok just a minute buddy we're going inside to the potty" I say over my shoulder as I'm searching the van. Now he get's louder and is starting to cry "I gotta pee so bad! The pee pee's coming out!". I found some clean pants for Neva and everyone hopped in our huge buggy and I started pushing faster than I've ever pushed before! The Target on the Parkway does not have one of those big family bathrooms that you can fit 12 people and a cart in so it's always interesting trying to take everyone to the potty there. We made in time for Liam thankfully (boy that was close) and after a lot of wipes and a bunch of irritated looks from strangers because we were taking up so much space in the bathroom (whatever people), the emergency was over and we were ready to return our stuff. OK! Stuff returned, ready to go to the mall.

By now many of you are probably thinking "what is wrong with you trying to run all these errands with 4 kids anyway?". The kids go everywhere with me and usually we don't have too many problems but looking back now I do think I probably set a slightly unrealistic goal for today. I just wanted to get it all knocked out so I don't have to do it later this week. In my mind I pictured it going a lot smoother but that's OK! I was still determined to get the rest of my list done so when we were done at Target we loaded back up and were off to the mall. We started at Sears and all in all that went ok. It took a little longer than I'd hoped but no major incidents so that was good. The kids by this time are pretty much over running errands and Rachel is starting to complain. Elliott is having a really hard time keeping his hands off of everything we pass. My nerves are a little frazzled but we only needed to go to JC Penny and then we were done at the mall. Sears has shopping carts so I was able to put Neva on my back and Liam and Rachel in a cart which helped things go smoother. However, when we needed to leave Sears and head to the opposite end of the mall we had to give up the cart. Recently I sold our double stroller because it got on my nerves and somehow we lost our umbrella stroller so now we are stroller-less. No biggie. We can do this. If the Duggars can go everywhere with all their kids surely I can make a quick trip to the mall with my 4 without being escorted out by security. Right?

It was a little tricky but we made it through the mall, all holding hands, and were in line at JC Penny. We were so close to being able to return our stuff and get out of there. The kids were very restless and I kept having to remind them not to touch things, not to hang on each others necks, not to talk so loud...I felt like people were staring. When you go places with 4 kids you get 2 different types of looks from people. Some people are smiling and they tell you what a beautiful family you have and how they had a bunch of kids too and it was so great....and then there's the people that look at you like they are disgusted and they can't believe you had so many kids on purpose and how dare you bring them out in public.  At that moment I felt like it was the second type of people that were staring. Now it was our turn to go to the counter. I got everyone's attention and we joined hands again and took a few steps when suddenly a manikin that we'd been standing next to came toppling over and fell on top of an old woman in a wheelchair that was at the counter next to us! Neva, who was in the carrier on my back (I had been pretty sure up until that point that she was the only one of my children not touching things and being a nuisance), had unbeknownst to me had a big handful of the shirt that the manikin was wearing and when we started walking she did not let go. OH MY GOSH! My toddler had seriously just pulled over a life size manikin and it fell on an old woman in a wheelchair!!  Now there were definitely people staring. The poor woman could not have been more surprised if I had walked up and smacked her in the face. She said she was ok but I think her arm was bruised. I apologized over and over but that just didn't seem like enough. She was so nice and for some strange reason acted like she almost felt sorry for ME (I could not imagine why accept that she must have thought I had my hands full trying to go shopping with my gang). Oh my goodness. Ok time to hurry over to the baby section and find something to replace the clothing I'd returned and then we needed to get out of there before anything else happened. About 1 minute into the baby section and I looked over and saw Liam was having a nose bleed. He literally has blood all over his face and it was still coming. Holy moly! Of course this is the day I didn't bring the diaper bag in with me so I have nothing to help him with. We all grabbed hands again and ran to the bathroom. After I get his face cleaned up and have a handful of napkins for him to hold on his nose for a few minutes I looked up into the big mirror to check myself and realized that the rubber band that had been holding my right pigtail was gone (yes I am a grown woman and yes I was wearing pigtails today). So I have 1 pigtail and 1 crazy fro on the other side. When did this happen? How long had I been walking around like this? Did I mention that I saw someone I knew in Sears and she stopped and had a short conversation with me? No wonder that woman looked at me with pity. I was a WRECK! My kids were out of control and I looked like I had stuck my finger in a light socket. At this point I felt like had to do something about my hair or I would not be able to walk back through the mall with my head up so we all ran out of the bathroom to the little girl section and I grabbed the only set of hair ties I could find for sale and I quickly pulled on out of the pack and put my hair back up. Never mind that it was hot pink and had a funny felt flower attached to it. At least I had two distinct ponytails now. I decided that it was time for us to go home and began thinking that we should have probably gone home a lot sooner. I was tired, the kids were tired, my nerves were shot, Liam's nose was stained with blood. The rest of our errands would have to wait til another day. I snagged a couple baby rompers off a wrack and we ran to the counter to pay for them along with my new hair accessories. Once out of Pennys we headed through the mall toward Sears where the van was parked. When we passed the little play area in front of Macy's all of the kids asked why we weren't stopping. I told them because of our day and because they did not listen to Mommy in the store and touched things they weren't supposed to that we could not stop there today. Everyone started to cry and Elliott went into a full blown meltdown. I felt like crying too.

We finally made it back to the van and headed back home. When we got home everyone took a very long nap and I sat and enjoyed some much needed peace and quiet. I think it's time to get my books back out "Shepherding a Child's Heart" and "To Train Up a Child" and regroup. After all of this as I look around my crazy house I am thankful. Yes I am tired and I don't think I will ever attempt so many errands in one day unless I'm alone but I am thankful that the woman in the wheelchair was not badly injured. I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband who is almost home. I am thankful for 4 kids who even though they were not on their best behavior today they are still amazing gifts from God and I know I am blessed. I am thankful for my crazy life. I am thankful that even though I am not the perfect mother or the perfect wife or the perfect housekeeper I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and gave His only Son for me :-)

Romans 5:8 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."