Shopping Just Got Tipsy...

The other day i was having one of "those" days....I seemed to have an absolute cloud of chaos following me. I entered a room, picked it up, moved to another room to do the basics of picking up and what not, only to re-enter the previous room and find it had met with the destruction that only two Tasmanian devils could accomplish...aka...my four year old and two year old. After repeating this process a few times, i remembered the wise words i had heard in high school at some point: "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results"...well, mama was reaching insanity!


So, we took the dogs out to go potty, put them in their crates, and buckled up kiddos in car seats and headed into town....where oh where should we go?....Well, to get a diet coke with lime of course...that's just a given...but then where? As i drove aimlessly, sipping on my much deserved D.C., i found myself pulling into none other than the Ross parking lot. Ross...of course. This would be an easy fix...I could wander up and down the kid isles, and let my girls ooh and aah at the shelves filled with tea sets and puzzles and Bratz and princess everything...this would be exciting for them and give me an easy mental break...recipe for perfection...right?


What could go wrong ? the unseasoned mother might ask...(aka, me, a week ago).


So, i buckle Faith (my 2 year old) into the cart, and tell Lily to stay with me, and we head to the kid section. It's perfect, and easy for the first fifteen minutes . We find a few gifts for some friends who have birthday parties coming up...I'm feeling accomplished...there are some great deals nestled in my cart that are perfect. Then, Lily notices something on a shelf...a shelf higher than her little arm reaches, (can you feel it coming?...i could too...and looking back on it, I'm thinking how convenient "go-go gadget arms" really would be for a mother...), and i see her climbing up the side of the cart to reach the toy...it's all happening so fast...i reach to grab her, but it's too late! The cart is tipping! I grab the front of the cart and Faith with one hand and reach to grab Lily with the other hand..it's no good, we are going down. I'm out of hands...my leg is up like a kung fu master attempting to push the cart back up...and if you have ever been to Ross, you know that they have those five foot metal bars sticking up from the cart so that you can't take the carts outside the store. Well, those bars really cause a problem if your cart is going down! The bar catches the top shelf of the toys, and an avalanche of toys, puzzles, and tea sets come crashing down...Oh My GOOD GRAVY!! Is this really happening right now?!! I'm stuck...there is seriously nothing i can do...we are two feet...at most...from the cart hitting the floor, and lily being crushed by the cart, and who knows about Faith...i mean, its not like those buckles in shopping carts are really made for shopping cart accidents....and I'm twisted in all sorts of positions trying to keep this all from happening...and then, out of nowhere...a fellow mother comes running down the isle to help me upright the cart and my daughters....we are saved...from everything but humiliation...and this sweet mother...my friend in combat, turns to me and says, "these silly carts tip SO easily"...and smiles and walks away. "Thank you", i say, breathlessly...but, she is already gone, because, she is a mother too.


I assess the damage around me...literally all around me...and decide this particular trip to Ross has quickly slid into the "abort the mission" category. I quickly pick up the toys and put them on the shelves...i pull Faith out of the cart, grab Lily's hand and my purse and walk right out those doors to my car. And i have thought about that cart, left in the middle of an isle, filled with a few bargain treasures that will no longer find their way into the hands of those upcoming birthday party holders...and while it would have been nice to have those gifts wrapped and ready to go, it would have been, in no way, worth it to push that cart to the front of the store and stand in line and feel like the crazy cart lady for one second longer...that may come later in life...but, I'm not there yet.