Has this ever happened to you?

I love life with two kids, and felt that I was officially initiated into this new world yesterday. Whoa.

The Library
It was a nice day and I thought it would be a great day to visit the library with the kids. Katelyn loves looking at books at the library, though her greater love is sitting on the really cool kid chairs at the really cool kid table in the kid's section. Who could blame her? So, she proceeded to pull books off the shelf, as usual, run (she doesn't walk) to the table, climb up on the chair, look at the cover for a second, climb down and repeat. Ethan did fairly well in the library, that is, after his little crying episode in the parking lot. We had to sit on a bench outside for minute before attempting to bring a somewhat colicy newborn into a quiet library. I felt brave.

Well, Ethan decided that we were done with the library, so I quickly grabbed 5 or 6 books and headed for the checkout desk as he continued to cry. There were a few other crazy details, but I'll move on to the better part.

Dollar Store
I needed to pick up some b-day presents for my niece and nephew so I headed to the dollar store. Such a great place for kid's gifts. I grabbed a nice little shopping cart for Ethan's car seat and let Katelyn walk. She was being such a good girl as she proceeded to fill the cart with every ball she could find. I laughed and kept putting them back. We kept walking, she stopped to look at the dolls (and eat the tag on it... who knew paper tasted to good?) and I continued down the busy aisle. About this time, Ethan decided he was uncomfortable and started crying. Katelyn was quite a few steps behind me and there were a bunch of people between us. "Katelyn, come here, please." "Waaa, waaaa!" (That was Ethan.) Repeat that about 5 times until I had to walk down the aisle to get her and put the doll back. All I had to do now was make it to the candy aisle, get two presents and one little treat that I'd promised Katelyn before Ethan did the "death scream" as we call it. After she made a few stops to look at sun glasses (waaaa, waaaa) and other things on the way (waaa, waaaa) she quickly started pulling candy off the shelf (waaa, waaaa). I was frantically looking for candy for my 6 year old niece and 9 year old nephew (waaa, waaaa), trying to watch Katelyn and ask her to put the candy back when she tried to put it in the cart, when I must have turned my back for too long. I'm not sure who decided to put glass goblets in the candy aisle, but to my great surprise, when I turned around I saw my cute little innocent Katelyn holding a goblet, ready to add it to the three other goblets that were already in the cart. Amazingly enough, only one of them had broken. (waaa, waaaa) She must have thought we needed some nicer cups. As I proceeded to remove them from the cart (waaa, waaaa) Katelyn had already moved to the M&M stand and was adding handfuls of M&M packages to the cart. I can't remember when I finally grabbed the boxes of candy for my neice and nephew, but somehow I grabbed some Nerds (hope them like them!), tossed them in the cart and removed the extra M&M's. Katelyn loves M&M's so it wasn't a big surprise, but the hard part was that I honestly was having trouble taking them out faster than she could put them back in! (waaa, waaaa) Luckily, I was in a good mood and was frantically chuckling at the situation. So, off to the checkstand where Katelyn decided we needed some lotion (or something in a pump container, I didn't have the time to check it out). She grabbed one, I asked her to put it back, she went to put it back (such a good girl) and grabbed another one to add to the cart. (waaa, waaaa) Repeat that about five times while I was waiting for the two people in front of me to check out. The first one was kind enough to come back to me and ask if she could help me hold the baby or something. (waaa, waaaa) I thanked her, but knew that if I couldn't calm him (I was holding him) that the chances were slim that she could. So thoughtful though. Katelyn finally gave up the lotion bottles, and moved on to climbing up the cart and trying to grab the jagged edge of the broken goblet that I had left in the cart. Ahhh. No Katelyn. After a few times of that, she stopped and found a new trick. Well, the carts at the dollar store (waaa, waaaa) didn't have a little shelf underneath, but just kind of a big hole. Somehow she managed to slip underneath and the cart started sliding around as she tried to regain her balance. (waaa, waaaa) Can we just get out of the store?? I know everyone else was thinking the same thing! (waaa, waaaa) I finally managed to pull Katelyn out from under the cart, explain to the checker that the goblet was broken, hand him the five broken pieces and the extra M&M package that I hadn't removed, pay with Visa (because they don't accept AMEX he told me as I had my card in hand), grab the reciept and get out of there. Getting into the car was a trick in itself because Katelyn found something really interesting on the floor. Oh boy. Whoooooaa! We made it! I didn't cry!! Ethan saved the "death scream" for on the way home. Katelyn was happy as ever eating the M&M's and I think we even got the b-day gifts. Welcome to life with two! Boy am I looking forward to more! :) (Actually, I am, but it's going to be crrrraaaazy!)