A trip to the grocery store

Before Vivian was born I really thought that I would not try to go anywhere alone with all the kids for a long time. I often could barely handle shopping with the three. But the reality of life is, for many reasons, I have to go places and run errands when Tim isn't home. When Tim is home I cherish the little "family time" we get (see his blog even when he is home he is often not available) and I don't want to lose even more. And honestly often when he is home I am too beat to think about running to get groceries ect. So with all that said I have given up on the idea of not going places alone with the kids.

Yesterday we went to story time at the library. It is pretty easy to handle them there. It is a small library and there are mostly other parents there during story time. Kellen is happy to browse and read the whole time. Lydia is totally into the activities of the story time. Nolan will participate in some of the activities and "read" other books and flirt with the other moms there . (Did I tell you he is a people person?) Vivian naps during this time and is happy to nap in her car seat with all the activity going on. I did have to grab the car seat a couple times and go chase Nolan in the adult books, but no biggie!

Then I was brave (foolish?) and decided to make a quick trip to the grocery store. By this time we are usually eating lunch and Nolan goes down for a nap. Vivian is still sleeping but will be getting up soon. So I am trying to hurry. I got one of those double seater carts put Nolan and Lydia in the seats and Vivian on the cart. Kellen "helped" me push the cart. The kids did really well. The biggest issues was Kellen and Lydia arguing and Nolan yelling "daddy" through the dairy section (I don't know why) and kicking off the mud on his shoes through the checkout. Vivian slept peacefully until we were almost finished checking out. Shopping with four was really not much different than with three. The only thing that was more difficult was finding space in the cart b/c the car seat was in my way.

The reactions of other people at the store made me laugh though. Picture the cart with two in seats and one in the cart then add to it that this cart was one of the loudest carts I have ever heard. So as if the kids weren't enough to draw peoples attention I feel like I am being announced by bull horn with my squeaking cart. Most of the shoppers were senior citizens. I only saw two other kids in the store. They were there with their grandparents. Here are some of the reactions we heard,
- Walking around the corner we surprised the lady there who says "Oh my!"
- "Are they all yours?"
- At least three times "Wow you have your hands full!"
-"Oh look at the new baby!" (of course)
- "Is this you first trip out with them all?" I didn't realize it was so obvious! :)
And of course we saw lots of what Tim and I call the "raised eyebrow" look. The look that says, "Are you people crazy?" or "Ok I don't get you."

So that was our first adventure to the store. Things were crazy by the time we got home. We were all very hungry and Nolan fell asleep in the car for about 15 minutes but would not go back to sleep when we got home! I guess I have to work on my timing for errands. I did have the passing thought that if I sent the kids to school it would be a lot easier to run my errands! I guess that isn't a very valuable reason to stop homeshooling! :)