Shopping, with four kids?!?

Yes, I brought all four kids shopping with me this morning. It was a rough one, but not the worst time I've had with them.

Taking three kids can be an adventure. If one of the three is Elizabeth, things are most often very smooth and well organized. If she's not there, chaos rules. Two is much easier, one is a breeze, especially if it's the baby or Elizabeth. But four can be insane. Elizabeth only acts as a calming influence on the other three for only so long. Then she's sucked into the craziness that is Samuel and Hope. (kind of like life. We hope the good will rub off on something bad. Which can happen, if we work hard at keeping the good. Often we let our guard down, the bad starts out as a little bending of our good, and then it's a quick slide down into the bad. It takes great strength of character and a strong connection with the Ultimate Good in order to keep us away from the bad. Much easier to stick with the good and avoid the bad, unless you've been called by that Ultimate Good.)

The trip started out well. Went to Walmart, worst store to go to in Cortland. Kids not too bad. Although I questioned their intelligence when the three older ones decided to climb on the same side of the cart at the same time. (I bet you can picture that one!) Price Chopper is great. They have a little room for 3-9 year old's, so two of them play in there while I take the littlest two with me. Last is Aldi's. Apparently my children think Aldi's is a play place, because they all go crazy. Sometimes bribery will work, "I'll give you a treat if you behave and walk with Mommy." Sometimes I threaten, "If you're not good you will sit in time out when we get home." Today, neither of those things worked. I finally got sick of trying to drag them down the aisles with me while pushing the cart and shopping. I left them. I just walked away and left them cavorting in the cold foods section, opening and slamming the doors.

Elizabeth, as always, is the first to run to me. Then Sammy and last short legged Hope. It produced half of the desired results, they stayed with me, but did not act any calmer.

I was furious by the time we checked out. We got home, I put Amelia to bed since she had fallen asleep, banished my other three to the play room, brought the groceries in, and finally sat in the sun listening to the crows. (Have I mentioned I hate crows. I understand their purpose, but they are creepy and have annoying cries.) A few seconds into my quiet that Ultimate Good came tapping on my shoulder. With a sigh I told Him I was enjoying my wallow into anger and self-pity. If He wanted me to have a better day He'd better press the reset button Himself.

Thankfully He loves me and so He pushed that button. Which always works better, since He has more force behind His finger. My day became better, with it's few pitfalls and mishaps. More importantly, I felt better.