Errands With Children = ADVENTURE!

Disclaimer: I have never had my own children. Though I want to be a parent, my parenting knowledge is new and limited. I have only been taking care of tiny humans for about a year.

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Today I had the opportunity to spend about two hours running errands with a couple of my friends' children. Before we start we need to get the elephant in the room out of the way. These were't just any kids... They are two of the sweetest and most charismatic kids in existence!

I've wanted to try an errand day for a while now. Twice a week I only have two kids to watch, and I liked the idea of getting things done during the day, so I could play more video games once the kids go home ;) I finally got up the courage to ask the kids' parents if I could do this, and after a quick car seat tutorial we were on our way!

We made four stops today: The post office in a plaza, the small animal hospital with it's own small parking lot, the HUGE grocery store, and the small pet shop with on-street parking. All of these venues provided their own unique hurdles as well as useful perks.

Actually, before we really get going I need to mention the true elephant in the room: privilege. White privilege has been making it's way around the Internet arousing much vibrant discourse of late. One thing I am often conscious of, as I walk around the neighborhood on my way to the park, playground or library with 2-6 children in tow, is my privilege. Most strangers we meet assume I'm the mother of all of the children I care for. As the strangers smile at me and say nice things to us, I wonder how my experience would differ if my skin were darker. Would the kind people in the park whisper something about welfare queens as we walked past each other? Could this thought be just the product of all the news I'm trying to avoid these days? Or is it evidence of my own private prejudice? Or is it me coming to grips with our self-imposed segregated reality? Regardless, I feel it is important to be conscious of these thoughts... and perhaps they will come to fruition in a future post.

Tangent inventoried.

Figuring how to safely remove two children under the age of two from a car is a challenge! In the small parking lots I felt a lot safer. There wasn't much traffic and I could put the slightly older kid in the unused front seat with a stern, "stay here" request while I unbuckled the smaller kid. It worked really well. The BIG lot at the HUGE grocery store caused me to be overcautious in an attempt to reduce my anxiety. I found three empty spots together and parked in the middle... and opened both front doors as to say, "Please don't
park in those other spots just yet." Until this experience I thought it was silly that some large parking lots have spots up front reserved for families with small children. It's not just about the kid's safety... but the parent's sanity! Double whammy here! Or maybe I'm just suffering from first-year-with-children syndrome. :)

None of those parking lots came close to how terrifying it was to park on the street and get a kid out of a carseat from behind the driver's seat. I just stood there waiting for the light down the road to turn red... then waited again as the remaining traffic passed. Then, it was a race!! I'm glad this was my last stop. I'm relieved that the child seat wasn't confusing this time. I'm also lucky this kid has a lot of experience pulling his arms out of the straps with ease. For the first time, I questioned my hatred of parking lots in the city.

Wearing a baby-carrying contraption kept the tiny-tiny human safe, which allowed me to focus most
of my attention on the free range tiny human. I'm glad I didn't take the stroller... I really didn't want to take-out/put-in an additional item that also had buttons and straps. However, inside the pet shop I understood why a stroller is useful. There is just so much AWESOME STUFF TO GRAB!

Navigating the insides of the shops was a challenge, but once I was done I had to get my new wares back to the car... and that, I thought, would be the real problem.

I was pleasantly surprised how wrong I was.

As I pushed my cart of groceries through the large grocery store parking lot, tiny toddler secured in the cart and tiny-tiny toddler attached to me, I debated the best position for the cart to rest while I unloaded the children and the bags. I held an internal dispute about stowing the humans or the products first. But, before I had time to come to a conclusion, an employee was close at had to load my items into the trunk, watch the cart while I loaded child number one, and take the cart back for me as I loaded child number two. @.@

THEN, at the pet store where I bought many cans of food and two large bags of cat litter the man delivering the shop's latest products was standing and waiting. I thought I was in his way, and when I offered to move he said, "oh, I'm just waiting here so I can carry your stuff to the car for you." @.@

Today I just couldn't help but think, the world must really like me! Then I realised.. I really like the world! Was the world just returning the favor, or is it all just about perspective?