falling apart

If you have an erronious vision of me- say, that I am a completely put together smooth operator that can handle two kids with ease while dodging almost any obstacle on my path to claiming the award for mom of the century...then read no further since I am about to blast that vision to bits. I honestly should not even be allowed out of the house with my children especially after our trip to Target this afternoon. As I drove there, I realized that Nate's car seat was almost tipped horizontally after our first hard left turn. Somehow the seat belt had loosened and he was in quite a predicament. I struggled with his seat, undoing the seat belt and re-threading it as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. Meanwhile he was in the floor of the car nearly falling out onto the hot pavement. And he was screaming, I don't want to leave that out. I got the seat tightened and the three of us went inside. Our shopping experience was actually alright, except for the time Nate stood up by himself in the shopping cart seat and nearly topppled out, oh- and when Ava went skipping way ahead of me, tripped, and fell down hard, oh and also when Ava started screaming while trying on shoes. Ok, so it was slightly lower than alright. Then, as I was holding Nate with one arm, and Ava's hand with the other, and pushing the cart to our car with my chest, the wind lifted a flower bouquet right out of the cart onto the ground. A nice passerby picked it up for me and put it back in the cart since she took pity on me and probably didn't want to see if I could reach it with my teeth. As we pulled up next to the car, I realized with horror that the driver side door was STILL OPEN from when we had arrived. Now that is very embarrassing. So, I was glad our car was still there. I loaded the kids and bags into the car and then did what I absolutely can't stand for people to do...I left my cart right there because I couldn't leave the kids alone with the car running to go put it in the corral. Yes, I can leave my car door open, but I draw the line at the potential car-jacking of my children! I drove home quietly wondering at my ineptness. At least Nate's seat stayed upright. That made me feel better.