We have a family picture was coming up and I needed to find some specific colors, so we hit the mall.
Side Note: In my children's defense, a few days before we had hit half a dozen used clothing stores and they behaved beautifully. Yes, we did have to do some backtracking due to a forgotten jacket and a forgotten shoe and we visited three restrooms ... but that just comes with the territory.
Okay, so we arrived at the mall and my umbrella stroller refused to lock into place. I body slammed it into the asphalt. Problem solved. With child #3 finally buckled in, we sailed into the mall on wings of optimism. I shall present just a few highlights.
In the first store, child #3 learned how to get out of the stroller buckles, fell out of the stroller and bonked her head. Child #3 is the one with the lungs. I have never seen a cashier work so fast, or be so willing to part with so many stickers.
Child #2 decided that if child #3 didn't want to ride in the stroller then he would, and climbed in. Child #3 resented the intrusion and began beating her older brother while cursing in two-year-old-eese.
The second store was full of reachable, shiny accessories. Being denied such shine accessories in the first store, child #3 grabbed a bag and with a speed that any kleptomaniac would admire, filled the bag, dashed out the door and began to book it down the hall-way. Child #2 gave chase, tackled her, and held her till I caught up. This was no easy feat. He only has a pound or two on her, but he does have greater speed and agility.
In the third store, I gained greater insight to the definition of stymied (a situation or problem presenting such difficulties as to discourage or defeat any attempt to deal with or resolve it) The dictionary claims this definition has it's roots in golf, but I believe it originated with shopping excursions. The dilemma of finding a opponent's ball between your ball and the cup is nothing to being half naked in a dressing room and having all three of your children wiggle out under the door and begin a game of high-speed chase through the store.
Additionally, child #1 is incapable of standing still in a dressing room. If there is a mirror and an audience she must dance. If she happens to be wearing a new dress, then there is really no hope. Child #2 is compelled to touch naked mannequins. And I am not even going to start on the elevator/escalator debacle, but thank you nameless J.C. Penny employee for bringing my family back together again.
At the end of all this, I was doing a very painful pregnant waddle. I walked my crew out to the van ... and there were no keys. I remember hooking my keys to my purse with a carribeaner before entering the mall, but they were nowhere. I waddled back into the mall. An exhausted child #3 had been screaming for the last 10 minutes and continued to scream unless I carried her. We started to look for the keys, but I simply could not go on. I sat down on a bench, ignoring the narrowed looks being shot at me by the pushy salesman at the closest booth. The screams of nap-needy child #3 were sending all possible customers rushing past him at a trot. Using my last blinking bar of cell-phone battery I call my husband to come and rescue me. I sat there praying and encouraging my children to do the same. As I sat there, I had the idea to rummage through the bags that held my purchases. There, in a bag within a bag, under a pile of clothes were my keys.
I cannot fathom what combination of angels, physics, children, pregnancy brain or flat out miracles it took to get my keys there, but there they were. Considering the chaos we had been through, they could have been anywhere. I called my husband back and told him that God must loved me because despite my seriously considering using duck-tape on a few of His children, He still took the time to rescue me. With child #3's sleepy head dropped to my shoulder, we quietly and thankfully made our way out of the mall.
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