A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As I left the house this morning I thought that things had gone well when getting the kids ready this morning and we were even out the door almost on time. I was ready to go do some shopping with my mom and sister. The diaper bag was loaded with snacks and drinks. I even had note books and pens if the kids wanted to draw. The Semi ( this is what we call our double stroller, cause it is just so long) is in the back of the van. Einstein has been told, and retold to hold on to the semi or my hand at all times. So as I'm driving I'm thinking "OK this is going to work". Now let me interject that I am not a lucky person, never have been never will be. It always seems that I get to do things the hard way. With that said, as I'm driving from our house to the mall to meet my mom and sister I seem to hit every red light and then in the one lane road i get stuck behind the person doing 30 in a 50. So now instead of being just 5 minutes late( which is good when I get myself and 3 kids ready and out the door before 9:30am)I'm more like 15 minutes late. But that's ok my mom and sister will understand. Evey thing is still good. We finally get there and I get Lovebug and Picasso loaded in the semi. Einstein is holding my hand. We cross the parking lot with out incident, we get in the mall find my sister and mom. Then we enter JC. Pennys. That is where every thing changes. Almost instantly upon entering the store Lovebug starts to whine. So I pull out the sippy cup. That should do it. Nope, it was thrown into the next rack of clothes, so down I go to retrieve it. She does the same with snacks. But I don't realize it until I start rolling over teddy grahams with the wheels of the stroller. I pick up the big pieces, and push the rest out of the walk way and just pray that someone with a broom will come along soon. At this point Picasso has joined in on the fit throwing, and Einstein is "flying" all around the clothes and up and down the walk ways. Oh and I forgot to mention that my sister has 2 kids and 21/2 year old girl and a 1 month old boy. At one point when my sister was trying on clothes, we thought we could let the kids get out of strollers for a few minutes and play in the empty dressing rooms. Didn't work so well. The baby started to get fussy. So grandma was holding him and the rest of the kids were everywhere. Slamming doors and 2 of them managed to get out, so off I go running through jcp trying to catch the fast kiddies. Once everyone was rounded back up and strapped in to the strollers, we headed over to the shoe section to see if the have any good sandals for all of us to go with our Easter outfits. So there were 3 adults and 5 kids that wanted to try on shoes. The poor lady was really hating her job. None of the shoes she brought out fit any of us. We had stacks of shoe boxes that didn't fit. Of course as the moms try to find shoes that fit, the kids are everywhere. Lovebug is just tall enough and enjoying the freedom of walking and has pulled all the shoes from the bottom shelf off the display, Einstein is off flying like buzz light year again, and Picasso thinks that the stroller is his very own jungle gym. I have tried on tons of shoes none fitting, this is what happens when you have long skinny feet. So this is when I had reached my boiling point. So I quickly loaded up the kids and and walked around for a minute then just decided to go. what a terrible, horrible, very bad day. but wait its not over yet.
I had check ups scheduled for Lovebug and Picasso later in the afternoon. Their 1 and 2 year checkups. I thought I would save my self a trip and schedule their appointments together. so grandma is watching Einstein. Everything is going fine. They were great in the waiting room, loved the fish tanks and finding "nemo". The nurse called us back, did all the measuring and weighing. Piece of cake. now we are just waiting for the Dr. . When he walked in both of my kids started to scream. They both were clutching on to me for dear life. we decided to tackle Lovebug first. So he checks her eyes, ears, the whole time of course she is fighting him pushing his hand away and trying to just get away. It was horrible, but we still had one more child to go and shots for both of them. Picasso is up, and he has a death grip on me and just giving me that pleading look that says " please don't put me on that table" but there I was holding him down so the Dr could do his stuff. And of course Lovebug is still screaming and clutching my leg, I try to hold her while holding Picasso down, doesn't work, so back to the floor she goes. Finally the Dr. is done. He tries to talk to me and tell me something, cant hear him over all the screaming so finally he basically starts yelling so that I can hear all the details. Then the nice Dr. that he is comes over and puts his arm around me and asks how I'm doing. I of course answer quickly that "I'm fine". I don't want to even think about how my day is cause I might just have a break down in the dr office. plus I don't want him to think I'm a frazzled mom. So I start apologizing for all the screaming and craziness. He looks at me and says " what are you talking about? your kids were great." what a good liar. I'm sure he has a few scratch marks to remind him of our visit. But what a good guy with the kids and the frazzled moms!!! I think we will keep him. After the dr. leaves we take a few minutes and have a snuggle session to get everyone calmed down. I get them dressed and we are out of there. I get them loaded in the van, and we are off to grandmas house to pick up Einstein. Once Einstein is in the car we head home. Half way home I noticed that all the kids were asleep. So I decided to just keep driving. I knew if I went straight home they would all wake up once I tried to move them. So I just drove and drove and drove. Trying to recoup from the days events. Finally after about an hour Einstein woke up and was panicked that we were lost. So I quickly drove home reassuring him the whole way that I knew where I was. As I pull into the driveway I just prayed that my Horrible day was over and that we could have a decent night and that the kids will go to bed early. I can only pray!!! I just want his day to be over with.