Full Hands, Happy Heart

Last night we got a call from the boys' school saying that the school building's electrical panel had been damaged by a water leak, and that school would be closed today. We woke up this morning to a new message: school will be closed tomorrow as well. Hooray for two extra days of Thanksgiving Break! I can say that last sentence both genuinely and sarcastically, depending on the way I look at it. The only real difficulty that having Luke and Jaz home today posed was that I had planned to do several before-break errands (namely grocery shopping, which I should have done four days ago), and was already feeling less-than-enthused about bringing just the two littlest ones along with me (not that I ever feel especially enthused about grocery shopping, even when I'm going solo).

So it was my first time heading out for a round of errands-shopping with all four boys by myself (surely, I have had all four at home and at outdoor venues (parks, etc.) by myself plenty of times, but shopping is a different scene). We managed to go to three different stores, and the bank, and made it home in one piece (or rather, five pieces). One time when I was grocery shopping with Luke, Jaz, and Zeb, before Leo was born, and a fellow shopper asked me, "how do you do this with three kids?" My response: "I try not to." Mostly I go shopping in the evenings or weekends, usually only bringing one kid along for the fun. And for good reason.

Grocery shopping with four children age 6 and under is an adventure in and of itself. Doing so on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving? A crazy adventure. But the truth is--and this does not surprise me, really--I love moving through the world with my four-pack. I sometimes see us from a birds' eye view: myself walking calmly, straight ahead, with baby strapped to my body, and the kids running circles around me, but moving forward at the same time. I lost sight of Zeben more than once (and he lost contact with his shoes more than once), but I was never worried about him. I could always hear him. Yelling, "mom, mom, don't forget we need this!" And then appearing with something (a dog toy, a can of sardines, a box of chocolates) that we absolutely didn't need clutched in his paws. I started putting these unwanted items down on random shelves because the store was so crowded that I couldn't imagine finding where they belonged, and Zeben noticed and scolded me, loudly, "MOM! That does NOT go there!" I had to explain that sometimes we simply can't do our best job at helping to keep the store organized (and that it would be much easier for us to do so if he only took the things off the shelves that I asked him to get).

Mostly what I love about being a swarm of craziness, moving through the store, is that I think we bring joy to people. Certainly there are some customers who must grumble under their breath when one of my kids cuts off their cart or spills a sample of apple cider on the floor, but for the most part, our collection gets a lot of smiles. Today, we even got laughter. One woman apologized for laughing, "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sure it doesn't help for me to be finding humor in your predicament." And I corrected her, and said, "oh no, finding the humor is the only way I know how to do this. And if you find it funny too, then that is a relief to me."

At one point I was nursing Leo, holding him with one arm, while walking through the store, pushing the cart, keeping my eyes on Zeben, re-directing Luke and Jaz away from the boxes-of-individually-wrapped-snacks aisle and selecting a few quarts of yogurt, when I started feeling like Leo's latch was a bit pinchy. Luckily Leo popped off soon after I started wishing he would (I didn't have an extra finger to pop him off myself), and I realized that he'd been latched on to an area of my breast just beside the nipple. I now have a lovely hickey to show for it!

By the end of our shop, our cart was filled to the brim, the baby's diaper was saturated (and soaking through his wool pants and onto my shirt), and the three older kids were all eating ice cream. I forgot to get cream cheese (an absolute staple in our house these days), but otherwise managed to do okay, groceries-wise. And nobody had too much of a meltdown, either. I left the store with Zeben in the sling on my left hip, Leo under my right arm, pushing the cart with one hand while Luke and Jaz rode on the sides of it. My hands were so, so full, and it felt so very good.

I don't have any pictures of our outing, for obvious reasons, but am attaching one from a little over five years ago, that captures my feelings about today.


I will be posting results from the gift card drawing and photo voting tomorrow (assuming the fabulous foursome gives me a break at some point)!