Of Shopping Excursions

These days many of my shopping trips are carefully executed around a schedule which will allow me to slip away from the house without children in tow.  Life just tends to be a lot easier when not dealing with the politics of who is sitting in the cart where and trying to explain to a two-year-old why Mommy isn't strong enough to push a cart one-handed while holding her tight with the other.  Not to mention the countless repetitions of, "Sweetie, don't touch."

These child-less outings are particularly crucial to me when I do my "deals-shopping" - the label I have given to my in-and-out stops at the local pharmacies.  Enduring the un-buckle and buckle processes, which sandwich the attempts to avoid any and all emotional melt-downs on the parts of two kids and a mom, all in the name of saving a couple dollars on one or two items at CVS is typically not worth it to me.

Thus, after the kids are all tucked in and my husband is happily plugging away on the computer, I sneak out for a little alone time.  Just me, my lists and my coupons.  Not always bliss-ful, but at least not tear-my-hair-out crazy.

This evening, however, while my husband was gallivanting in his quest to win us unnecessary forms of technology, I buckled in the kids and we headed out on a three-stop tour of the local hot-spots of couponing activities.  Straight off the relaxation-high from Mother's Day, I was feeling a little empowered - perhaps too optimistically so.

And while the evening had its trials and tears, the moments of my daughter break-dancing in Walgreens (Where does she learn this stuff?!) while her brother giggled and clapped along or the two of them squashed in together in the unique Cozy-Coupe-esque shopping carts of CVS (while little girl attempts to shove out her brother, underlining my wisdom in assigning him the only seatbelt in their plastic automobile) or Micaiah excitedly "helping" by handing the cashier every item in our cart at Homeland seemed to make the rest of the insanity worth it.

Because (most-over-worked-cliche-of-the-decade alert!) at the end of the day, they make everything worth it.

My shopping buddies enjoying the ride at CVS.