Life with 3 kids

Aaron and I have been attempting to live more within our means which means fewer unnecessary trips to town (which is about 25mins away). So on the days that I take Jacob to preschool, I usually have a dozen different places to go and yesterday was no different. Of course, if I was alone I could probably fit in a bunch of stops in the short few hours of school. But because I need to incorporate potty breaks, diaper changes and nursing at what feels like every stop, I usually can only get 1 or 2 stops in. So yesterday after 2 craigslist related stops, the post office, the school, the library and the dentist I attempted to take all three boys to Target and the grocery store.

Target actually went ok. I love their popcorn and pop combo because I get a cold pop and my kids get popcorn which usually is enough to keep them quiet for a quick target trip. It was still quite a sight though because I had both older boys in the stroller (Jacob normally refuses, but he was tired and its easier to eat his popcorn in there) and Austin strapped to me on the bjorn, with me standing with straight arms to push the stroller because if I get too close Austin will steal my straw. Additionally, I can't let the stroller get too close to the shelves, because Brody will do a little shopping of his own then. I also have a reusable grocery bag around my arm that I am using as my 'cart'. So can you guess what happens? A lady talking on her cell, pushing an empty cart with no stroller has the audacity to come down the aisle I'm shopping in and ask me to move over so she can get through. Not because she needed anything in that aisle, nope. Just because she was walking through it. I'm thinking she was even a mom, too, since she was looking at baby stuff! You would think that a MOM would extend a courtesy here. And as if doing it once wasn't bad enough, she came through a second time. That time I didn't move and she rammed into the aisle. Seriously, what is wrong with people? We manage though, courteous people or (more often) not.

After Target we made our way to the grocery store and initially I thought it was going to turn out very, very ugly since 2/3 of my crew had fallen asleep in between Target and Toms (the grocery store). Thankfully they woke up fairly peacefully and we made our way this time with Austin in the bjorn, Brody in the cart seat and Jacob in the big portion of the cart (until I had too many groceries and he needed to walk. As we were exiting the store the boys decided to run through a bike rack made up of a series of arches. Brody clearly has the advantage here since he is still short enough to make it through without ducking. I watched the boys playfully run through and told them they could run through one more time because they were having so much fun. Then Jacob didn't duck quite enough and nailed his head on the concrete arch and I realized why playing on a bike rack isn't such a good idea. I went from thinking I was a great mom who slows down to enjoy their kids being silly free-spirited kids to the neglectful bad mom who endangers their kids by letting them play on something NOT designed for play! Ahhh, mommy guilt at its finest. So I comforted Jacob and as I was buckling him into the car I said "Next time we probably shouldn't do that" and he replied "but I want to do it again" so I said "but what if you get hurt again?" and he goes "Then I will just have to keep on trying".

The bike rack: