A Miracle

Today I awoke with the knowledge that shopping was in my immediate future. We've been living off cereal and bagels, and whatever is in the freezer, and mac'n'cheese, but even those staples were running low. Add to that the need for a few things for Bradley's birthday next week...well, I knew we needed to go to at least four stores, possibly more.

With all four children in tow, the prospect did not thrill me.

Normally I do my shopping at night, or on Saturday, so that Daddy stays home with the kids and I don't go crazy amongst the dairy products. But this week, Bradley has had late meetings every night, including tonight--and he'll be working tomorrow all day, as well. Shopping on Saturday with four children is MUCH worse than shopping on Friday with four children.

Zee doesn't like shopping at all, and Em has limited enthusiasm for multiple trips. Gee and Hebs? They are pretty easy going, but Hebs gets tired and wants to be held, and Gee gets tired of walking and wants to be carried. I tried to come up with a plan to make it seem fun and adventurous, but to be honest, I was only 50% sure it would make any difference whatsoever. But I went ahead with it anyway.

Here's what I did: I figure out which stores I wanted to hit in which order, and I made little clue cards with numbers on them. For the first, I drew a stick figure family, circled the dad, and drew a little birthday cake and presents. The second was just the name of the store, but with no vowels, and a little list of stuff we needed. The third was a slice of pizza--I decided we would stop and get a pizza at Little Caesars for lunch. The fourth was a drawing of a park (where we could play and eat the pizza), and the fifth was the last store's name, with another little list.

See? Pretty lame and silly. But--and here is the miracle--the kids LOVED it. They couldn't wait to get the next clue (I made them wait until we were almost done with the previous errand before getting the next clue), but they were astonishingly well-behaved. When the first store didn't have what we needed, and neither did the second, and we discovered that only the store in Orem (about 25 minutes drive north) had the item, but it was likely to sell out by evening...Zee declared, "We have to go get it! It's for Daddy's birthday!" And so we did. (And we got it!!! Whew, especially since they told us they weren't sure when the next shipments would be arriving, because the demand was so unexpected.)

At Wal-Mart I bought them each a bouncy ball (4 for $4, not a bad bribe), they loved playing in the sunshine and eating pizza, and even at the last store, a sweet gentleman gave them all suckers at the beginning of the shopping trip instead of the end. They merrily (and messily, especially Hebs) sucked away while I quickly gathered the groceries we needed.

And so we arrived home almost five hours later, tired and footsore (at least I am), but tempers and attitudes quite cheery. Hebs is down for a late nap, Gee is on my bed next to me playing, the older two are at the neighbors playing with the new bouncy balls...and I am amazed and relieved and exhausted.

What a great family!