Adventures in Shopping

We had some shopping adventures today. Shopping with my children is always interesting, for one reason or another.

First of all, it puts us in the public eye, so we get to field all kinds of questions about the size of our family. When the kids are being good, I get good comments - about what wonderful big helpers I have, and how important it must make them feel. When the kids are rowdy, I mainly just get interesting looks than silently say how crazy people think I am. They're probably right, but when you are a little crazy, you just have to go with it and make it work for you.

Anyhow, I had a Target gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket...I had to go. I bought diapers, socks, and tiny (6-12 mo.)shoes for Cozette, since it was a baby gift. Sofia talked me into a "Tide on the go" pen to remove some unsightly stains from her Pokemon. (I'm hoping that conscientious "Poke-Mom" will translated to conscientious Mom someday.) Then I bought some gifts and thank-you cards. James and Cozette slept most of the time, so it was very uneventful.

Costco...where all of my real shopping adventures take place. No, I didn't leave my car running again. (In case you where wondering)

Some background information: I told the kids over a year ago that I would buy a Wii when they finished reading the Book of Mormon. (Just for the record, they chose the task - not me.) Since then, whenever someone asks if we have a Wii, I say, "No, my kids don't want one." The kids yell, "Yes we do!", to which I reply, "If you really wanted one, we would have one by now." A couple of them finally got serious, and today we went to purchase the Wii.

Back to Costco! Here I am at Costco, buying my Wii (and some danish pull-aparts...and some licorice), minding my own business, when the kids see the "Converta-benches" I've been eyeing. They're actually pretty cool - if you get two of them, they turn can turn into a picnic table! It's like having less complicated, more useful transformers in your back yard. The only reason I hadn't bought them yet, was that I was positive I couldn't fit them in a van that's already quite full of children.

Before I know it, Anthony is back with a flat-bed cart, loading up 2 converta-benches. I'm still sure they won't fit in the car. The kids are more optimistic. To make a long story at least slightly shorter, I set a new personal (high) spending record for Costco and drove home with the kids in a converta-bench fort.

Sofia even made me put them together tonight, by trying (unsuccessfully) to do it without me. Having older children is certainly interesting. Sometimes it's less clear who is running the show, but I'm happy to be raising such independent little people.

Sorry about the long, boring story. Tomorrow there will be boring pictures to go with it. :)