A Day in the Life Of: A Trip to Target

So quite often I get asked these two questions about the life of a stay-at-home mom:

1. What do you do all day? This question usually comes from people who do not yet have kids. I do not begrudge them for asking this question as I am sure I would have wondered the same thing myself at one point. I mean, how hard can it really be staying at home and taking care of kids all day, right???
2. What is it like having THREE kids? This question comes from my friends who DO have kids. Not that having three kids is really that many, but I guess most of my friends just had their first kid or maybe their second so they are curious about what it is like to have three.

In order to answer both questions, I have decided to start a new section on my blog entitled: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF. This section will be dedicated to showing what our life is like and how taking any ordinary daily task and adding three small kids to it, suddenly makes the task NOT so ordinary. Case in point: A Recent Trip to Target.

10:00 am - Arrive at Target. No "special carts" in the parking lot. For those of you who don't know...the special carts are the huge carts that are made for those of us who are actually crazy enough to take 3 kids to Target. These carts are twice as long as regular carts and are 10 times harder to maneuver. You will definitely hit people and numerous stationary objects while pushing the "special carts."
10:05 am - Get all three kids unloaded and start walking inside. Easton refuses to walk inside because he is boycotting the fact that we do not have a "special cart." I try the "walk and ignore" tactic. It does not work. I walk all the way back to get him and take hold of his hand to walk him in. He boycotts yet again because he wanted to hold my LEFT hand and not my right hand. I have to put Cohen down, get down on my knees and have a nice little chat with him about his attitude in the middle of the Target parking lot. Finally he decides to walk in the store.
10:10 am - We get in the store, get a "special cart," and get everyone strapped in. Praise God!
10:12 am - Thank goodness we find some friends who are also shopping and this entertains my kids while I pick out a couple of swimsuits to try on.
10:25 am - Get a key to the "Family Fitting Room." Get everyone unstrapped and unloaded into the family dressing room. Lock the door. Try on swimsuits.
**By the way....I would like to take this moment to slightly digress and give the people at Target a few suggestions: First of all, the likelihood that young mothers with young children will be trying on clothes in the "Family Fitting Room" is high. This means that these women have probably just gone through the rigors of pregnancy and childbirth. Therefore, it is completely unnecessary to have a room with 25 mirrors and high wattage fluorescent light bulbs that shine strategically down on the woman's body to show every little imperfection. Here's an idea...lose the light bulbs and get ONE mirror that focuses on making the mother look skinnier instead of fatter. Then, take the money you would have spent on the expensive light bulbs and mirrors and invest in some movies for the kids to watch while in the "Family Fitting Room." Take these suggestions and I promise you will sell more clothes!!!
10:30 am - Cohen freaks out and needs to eat. I sit down and start breastfeeding him.
10:35 am - While I am engaged in breastfeeding....Easton decides it will be fun to play "Indiana Jones" in the dressing room. This consists of climbing on top of a chair with a hanger in his hand. He then jumps off the chair and hooks the hanger on one of the clothes rods to swing across to the other side of the dressing room.
10:37 am - Emmy decides to try the "Indiana Jones" in the dressing room game which yields disastrous results.
10:38 am - I console Emmy while simultaneously breastfeeding Cohen.
10:45 am - Emmy is calmed down and Cohen is done eating.
10:47 am - Emmy poops. I change her diaper.
10:50 am - Cohen poops. I change his diaper.
10:55 am - Thank God! We are done with the "Family Fitting Room." I hand our number back to the poor high school-aged Target worker who will now decide to never have children thanks to me and my kids.
11:00 am - Go find our friends and continue shopping. They are allowing their kids to roam wild and free so I decide to let Easton out of his confines. He immediately sprints out of his seat like a race horse out of the gates and runs to the opposite end of the store screaming "Na-na-na-na-boo-boo. You can't catch me!!!"
11:02 am - Easton and Emmy get strapped back into the "special cart" after much protesting.
11:05 am - Protesting continues throughout checkout and all the way to the car.
11:10 am - Get loaded in the car and head to Subway to meet friends. But that would be yet another segment of "A Day in the Life Of"....