Shopping with kids

One of the most annoying things about being a temporary single parent is that, now that Clara's out of school, I almost always have to take both kids with me when I go shopping. Today we needed to make a trip to the craft store to get some supplies to make Daddy's father's day present. I thought that the kids might actually think it was fun to go pick stuff out, but I was wrong. Getting out the door in the first place was bad enough (oh, the whining!), but things got worse when we got to the store. They had been offered the customary and totally ineffective treat bribe, but even with that incentive they were not exactly in the most patient mood. But things weren't going too bad, we were looking around and had chosen a couple of things pretty quickly.

Then Clara noticed the dog. Some idiot lady had brought her dog into the store. (Look, I know this is Hawaii, people, but really? Your dog? In the craft store?) For those who may not know, Clara has an extreme fear of dogs. So of course, she shifted immediately into freak-out mode. I got her away from the dog and was trying to keep her calm while quickly searching the store for the rest of the stuff we needed to get, when suddenly I noticed a smell. An unpleasant smell. A distinctly... poopy smell. Yep, you guessed it. Forrest had just let 'er rip in his underwear. So I frantically dragged Freaky and Stinky around the rest of the store, paid for the stuff, and finally made it out to the car, where I had the emergency pull-ups and wipes. But of course, even though there were about 20 stores in the vicinity and even a couple of gas stations, NONE of them had public restrooms. So we all enjoyed a less than pleasant 30-minute ride home, where I finally got Stinky cleaned up and demanded that they both just go outside and play!

Summer vacation is how long, again?