Note to Self, RE: Little Boys and Grocery Shopping

Note to self:

When shopping with three little boys, do not forget to have little boys who are potty trained go to the bathroom before heading to the grocery store.

If you get to the third store of the afternoon and your almost-one-year-old falls asleep, just go home and call it a day.  Otherwise, you will be holding all twenty-some pounds of sleeping child while trying to push/drag a cart and corral two awake and active children.

If, in that third store, you get about halfway through your shopping and hear your three-year-old ask, "Mommy, does the grocery store have potties?",  you are in for a whole new adventure.  Run to the nearest restroom and pray that you make it in time.

If you are fortunate enough to make it in time to the restroom, don't assume that your six-year-old son makes a dependable chaperon for a three-year-old in the bathroom as you wait outside the door with a sleeping baby and a cart half-full of groceries. 

When two different grocery store employees enter the bathroom after your two children and then exit smiling, don't think it's because they think your children are adorable helping one another in the bathroom.  They are laughing at you, because you have no idea what they are really doing in the bathroom.

Be grateful the second employee stays by the door to kindly give you a play by play of what is going on at the sink.  When you ask if they are washing their hands (because you do hear water running), and you get a question back, "What exactly is your definition of washing?"  be assured that they are not indeed washing their hands.  Mercifully, this employee might kindly point out that the bathroom is indeed empty except for your two boys, so you can go inside and assess the situation.  Thank this helpful person.

Try not to laugh or hide in mortification when you see your six-year-old hiding behind the fake tree in the bathroom laughing his head off (Who puts a fake tree in the bathroom anyway?) and the three-year-old happily playing in the sink.  Just squirt some soap on those chubby little hands and scrub and get out of there as fast as you can with a still sleeping child in your arms.

Now, all you can do is finish your grocery shopping and pretend that none of this ever happened.

And resolve never to repeat this scenario again.