Tales from 2 Weeks Ago: yes it's taken me that long to get this post up

I have two children who are very much missing the warmth of the sun and the subsequent outdoor activities that occur when the sun provides such warmth. I miss it too. On a cooler day last week I thought that I could run a simple errand to the Bread Basket and haul my kids with me, no big deal. What would have been a quick trip for me, turned into a very long ordeal, followed by screeching demands from the backseat, of the "FRIES NOOOOOOOOOOW!" variety. I was proud of myself for not caving into the plea, especially because I was really desiring some fast-food comfort after having to rescue numerous loaves of bread from pokey fingers, and buying extra things just because I knew my kids had destroyed them, but I said "No" and I meant it. Steadfast parenting you say? Boy did I deserve a treat!
Yesterday was another cool couped up inside all day horror show, so when Steve got home and dinner was eaten by the adults and left for the birds by the kids we were kind of spent. Steve tried to bribe me to take one child to the grocery store, I felt it was a tad unfair since I had the pleasure of butting heads bonding with her all day. So my retaliation was "Why don't we go for a family car ride?!" which I thought meant we would all drive to the grocery store, I would run in and get the very few things that we needed while he entertained the kids in the car and then we would just drive around until closer to bedtime... Imagine my horror when he parked the car and started pulling kids from the backseat! Kids who had basically dressed themselves that day in upside down, backwards and mis-matched everything HAHA it was pretty great. The children were quickly divided, Brynlee took her seat in the cart, Kalea expressed her desire to walk with Daddy- of course, and into the store we ventured. After annoying a whole bunch of ladies with a game of marco-polo through the toothpaste/shampoo/facewash/makeup aisles and a minor melt-down by our 3yr old villain angel, Steve and I thought it best to trade offspring for a while. HA that was fun... I was now without the security blanket/shopping cart and was left to wrangle the very stubborn 3yr old to the opposite end of the store to get milk by myself. It has never taken me so long to get to the milk. It was an eternity of never-ending dialogue, "Eyes in front...watch where you're going...this way... follow mommy... can you find the milk? Watch out for that shopping cart!" When we got to the milk, Daddy and Brynlee were MIA, probably because they had to wait so long for us, but there was a nice looking older lady in the dairy section whom Kalea was very intrigued by. So intrigued that while I was grabbing my milk and the lady was down an aisle grabbing some yogurt, Kalea in her attempts to spy while bent over sideways, walked herself right into the ladies cart. So sue me if my initial reaction was to laugh, it was hilarious! And the look on her face while she rubbed her forehead was so classic. Well, the nice older lady didn't think it was very funny that I laughed and tried to verbally comfort Kalea- who didn't really need it. As she walked to Kalea she says "Oh that wasn't funny, she really hit her head hard" to which I responded "No trust me, she's fine, it wasn't hard at all and she's not crying" At that point I was receiving awesome facial expressions from this lady who doesn't know me, and Kalea ran to me, avoiding the stranger, and wrapped herself around my legs. It was at this point that the lady made the mistake of trying to get Kalea to show her the non-existent mark on her forehead and reached out her hand to move Kalea's hair out of the way. Kalea just screamed in her face "No! I want my MOMMY!" hahahaha stranger danger! The lady was shocked and all she said was, "Alright then, I get the message". I wanted to say "Sorry if I didn't have much sympathy but she didn't hit her head hard, and it happened because she wasn't listening, thanks for infringing on my teaching moment", but I just smiled and said "Let's go find Daddy and Brynlee, run!" LOL So after all the fun of the grocery store, we got home and the kids went straight to bed, like angels. It was amazing. Yay for craziness turning into hilarity turning into bedtime!
PS have I ever loved Kalea more than in that moment of screaming in stranger lady's face? I think not!