Trouble with a capital W

Ok, I think I smoked crack in my sleep last night, because I decided to take all three kids to WALMART today! That should be enough said, but I will indulge my readers. I should have known I was in for it when I drove up and all three kids were asleep in the back. I had been talking to mom on the drive there, and I didn't even realize how quiet it had been! So anyway! Waking my kids up is like waking up the bear cubs! Ann Cherie jumped out of the van like a zombie still in the "don't know where I am and can't find my shoes" state. Maggie and Laura just started screaming. Well, seeing as I can't carry all three in, my eyes started searching for extra buggies. Of course, this is the one day there are NO EXTRA buggies ANYWHERE in the whole parking lot to be had. So I grab Laura up to find out she has taken off her shoes, only one of which can now be located. Oh well, who needs shoes? After that search was called off, I grabbed her up again and proceeded to drag Maggie out of the van. The whole while Ann Cherie is standing there telling me how Maggie wakes up cranky, and that I ought to be leaving her alone for a while! No crap! While I do what? Twiddle thumbs; look for my sanity...really! Thanks for the info, baby! I finally drag my entire family INTO the store! Now to grab a buggy! Would you believe that I had to go through three buggies before I found one that had a working clasp that was not otherwise covered in fecal matter or some such other stinky and sticky goop? And Laura HAS to have the clasp! She loves to stand up and test my mother-of-the-year theory! I try to remember to bring my nice $50 fashionable seat cover, but it rarely ever makes it into the store with my ADD brain- not to mention the above mentioned war that distracts me from the logical. Anyway! We are now finally in the buggy and ready to roll- only to be stopped by the oldest geriatric on the planet that was hired to be the "greeter". Well, I was "greeted" with, "Get that kid off the bottom of the buggy," (Maggie's favorite place to ride, mind you, and the only way I was able to get her to stop screaming when I got her in the store!), "Don't you know she could lose a finger or something in the wheel?" Literally, he said this to me, the already-stressed, haven't spent a penny yet, too young to be mother of three. Well, I informed him that fingers were of very little consequence, that I appreciated his parenting advice, and proceeded to roll away. (Ok, so maybe I wasn't quite so nice, but REALLY!) I only had to worry about her fingers for a miniscule amount of time, because when we pulled up to the bananas she remembered it was her turn to bag. Of course she grabbed the set of bananas that were propping up like a whole side of bananas and they all came crashing down to the ground. So I start picking them up and told Maggie to get after it as well. She stands, crosses her arms, and tells me, "No, I am busy putting my nanas in the baggie. You do it, Mommy." Oh my lordy Jesus. So that was not the time for her to institute her stubbornness, hence, the first pop of the outing. (Yes, it was me hitting my child if surveillance makes national news! So take my kids away or something! I need a break!) Alright! We now have one item in our buggy! Congrats! On to the milk isle! According to my children, I do not buy the “right” yogurt, or the “right” milk (there’s right or white here!), or the “right” cinnamon rolls, etc. Maggie asked for chocolate milk so I told her to grab some! She wanted an individual one. I told her to grab the bigger size so that everyone could have some. She was not having any of that. I gave in and allowed her to keep her individual size as well. Big mistake! She walked the whole rest of the store asking every two seconds for me to open her milk for her. Not only did I not want her wearing it before we left, we also had the little thing of paying for things before we ingest them. I was trying to explain to her that it was stealing to open things and drink them before they were paid for. This did not go over well as she explained how she was thirsty in the immediate sense and not in the after you pay for it sense. And so I was reminded around every turn in Wal-Mart. Well all of this “advice” and the incessant whining of Maggie with her unopened milk earned them the second pop of the trip! What glorious fun (the whining, of course, not the popping!)! Onto the paper isle, the toilet paper of course was too big and infringed on Maggie’s new seating arrangement which was now in the big part of the buggy. Maggie starts screaming how it is smashing her legs and hurting her nose, and of course, her hair will fall out if she is uncomfortable for five minutes. Any other day “stadium seating” is preferential for her, but not today. She was NOT sitting on the toilet paper rolls today. She WAS driving me crazy. Because she could obviously not get happy IN the buggy, she earned the right to get OUT of the buggy, which walking was going to permanently disable her as far as she was letting me and surrounding customers know. I remembered I needed paper plates. So we moved on down and the kids started handing me every package of paper plates and noting the exceptionalities of each one. This one has flowers; this one has lines; this one has ANIMALS! Now we had it! They HAD TO HAVE animal plates for the camping trip! What a terror I provided by negating that decision. I’m sure they heard THAT let down back in automotive. Now, back to the food isles! We went to grab some shredded cheese. I am checking out the 35 different brands, prices, etc. (Seriously, can there really be 35 different ways to shred cheese?) I look up, and NO MAGGIE. I swear. I could not find her! Ann Cherie was the deaf mute again who didn’t see anything or know anything because she is NOT the Momma. Finally, about the time I was going to shout for help from other customers, Maggie sits up. That’s right sits up! She had climbed in and laid down in one of the open center fridgerators behind me! Luckily for her it was quite empty of its contents; unfortunately for me, it hid her little body quite well! Ok, my sanity is SHOT by now! On we press to the ink department. Ann Cherie decides to be bossy. SHE will get the ink down from the wall. SHE knows which one; her daddy showed her, etc., etc. Well she knew it had a red package, but that was it, and the ink we needed was on the very top row. She threw a major crying fit because I told her she could not get the ink. My SEVEN year old is throwing in a fit in the middle of electronics because she can’t get ink down that she can’t reach and doesn’t know the number to get in the first place. Good Lord, where are you? (At a spa in NYC, I presume, certainly not in Wal-Mart in Atlanta, TX! Not that I blame you, Lord. I'm with you in spirit, remember!) Back to the food department, of course there I am the TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, ROTTEN (totally relating to that book right now)…mother because: I will not buy EVERY popsicle and ice cream package on that row; I will not buy every package of candy on the candy isle; I will not buy the girls the movie they just want to go “check” to see if it is in the back of the store; I will not buy them a magazine, or a plastic phone, or a sucker, or a package of sparkly permanent markers (to use on my couches later), or animal plates, or Mac-n-cheese (that we have 16 boxes of at home), or EVERYTHING else that they laid eyes on in the store. OMG, I have had it!!!!! About this time we are getting ready to check out and LAURA who has been relatively silent (miraculously) until then decides she has had enough of her ride! She begins to wail and tries to stand up and starts throwing all of the stuff she can reach behind her in the buggy to the floor as hard as she can. Blackberries and strawberries went everywhere! Instead of helping me pick up the mess, Maggie and Ann Cherie are handing me candy after candy and begging for each one followed with my insistent “No” to each one, and their incessant replies as to their NEED for each one. All the while, Ann Cherie HAS to go to the bathroom, this need of which I am reminded of repeatedly until I could actually take her to the bathroom after checking out! That is when I lost it. I cried the whole time I checked out and most of the way home. The kids have won, I say! I am officially mother-of-the-year- crowned and curtsied! (Well, I am counting my blessings. Laura could have pooped or something!)
Needless to say, my doctor is on speed dial for a tubal ligation appointment first thing in the morning. And mom, you are coming to keep the kids while I recuperate, because you always made out how wonderful we were as kids and how we would love having children of our own. That lie has earned you a few extra days with your grandkids! And I know you lied because you are laughing, which means you can relate, which means I did these same things to you, hence the proof you lied and wherefore your sentence of babysitting these little hellion rugrats…(Welcome to TG&Y…Thank you for shopping at A&P…I remember, and I am INCREDIBLY sorry! I love you!)