Worst Night Ever ...

Have you ever had a shopping trip that made you swear you would never step foot into a store again with your kids?  Jake pushed Zack backwards right into someone else's cart.  He banged his head and shoulder pretty bad.  Ellie wouldn't quit crying and screaming for reasons still unknown to anyone on earth.  Zackary thought it necessary to do everything in his power to be mean to Jake and overly nice to Ellie, which made them both seriously angry.  Did I say seriously angry, I meant chasing him wildly through the isles, screaming.  I am fairly confidant they were never in the same isle as I was and every time I made an attempt to tame the wild beasts, it was like some sort of game to them all.  Who stole my children?  Addie, well she was an angel, thank heaven for that!

 

You know those messages that come on saying, "Please keep your children fastened in the cart and with you at all times.  And never allow your children to run around in the store."  You know those messages?  They were made for me.  Okay, no one go calling Super Nanny on me. This was a very unusual event and believe me I know I should have left.  There is no Sam to send shopping later and it would have been really bad to not have food for them to eat in the morning!  I knew I didn't like shopping, I just didn't realize how much until tonight.

 

And then ... we get home and suddenly everything is great.  They all are helping unload the van and put things away without even being asked nicely to do it (okay, threatened with something ridiculous that I don't plan on following through with but say because it just might work this millionth time, not!).  I got several, "Thank you Mom this is really yummy." comments about the myriad of leftovers thrown on their plates for dinner.  They were all talking to each other so politely at dinner while I was serving and such.  They even all spontaneously apologized to me and each other for their behavior in the store.  The shoes were all put away and the jackets piled neatly in front of the closet for me to hang up.  No one made a peep about straightening up the few toys that were out.  

 

Jacob carried out his own punishment, that I had forgotten about, when we got home.  He was to go straight to bed after dinner.  I thought it odd that he told me he wanted to brush his teeth in an asking sort of way.  When I found him in bed I asked what he was doing.  "You told me to go to bed after dinner Mom because I didn't listen to you at all at Sam's and I acted like you were invisible."  Ahh, now the asking to brush makes sense.  They all went to sleep without a single hitch, when has that ever happened?

 

The best though was Addie, oh Addie, what would we do without her great sense of comedic timing.  She got done with dinner and was running around in a diaper while the rest of them were still eating.  Suddenly she starts running from the kitchen to the front door making this hilarious singing type noise and then slams herself into the door.  Turns around and heads for the kitchen all the way to the dishwasher and slams into that.  She goes for a few rounds and everyone is laughing uncontrollably, Zackary was rolling on the floor at one point.  She stops cold.  Laughing, giggling, shrieking, silly noises gone.  The most dead straight face you have ever seen, "BOP, BOP, BOP!" (stop)  covers her ears and continues, "LOUD, LOUD, LOUD!" (too loud)  Everyone stops and looks at her worried that she's upset, she's very serious about this.  The corners of her mouth start to curl up into an I gotcha grin, she starts laughing a big I gotcha laugh and is off and running for many more rounds.  Where does she get it?  None of us knows, but we sure like to laugh with her :) 

 

Worst night ever?  How could it be with such a great ending.