Happy Mother's Day

We spent Mother's Day out of the country - we went to Minot, ND for the weekend because there's a hotel there with a waterslide park and a mall attached, and a Target in the mall, and a Wal-Mart that is open 24 hours, and that is a good combination of things for a weekend away with the kids.

Unfortunately, the hotel always makes us check out at noon on Sunday, and we weren't nearly done with the shopping and all of that - which means that we spent the afternoon hauling 4 kids around the mall with us. I sent the oldest 3 with my husband to the food court for something to eat and to play in the kids' room, and I took the baby and ran through a few stores madly grabbing things while he slept soundly. I got to the checkout in the first store with an armful of ridiculously cute and cheap baby clothes to find that I didn't have my credit card, I'd left that with my husband at the other end of the mall.

And the day just carried on like that - we ran around like crazy with the kids in tow, in and out of the van, from store to store. Evan had a blowout diaper in Wal-Mart and I had his diaper bag and a clean outfit but no wipes. And three little girls running around the public washroom with huge lengths of paper towel trying to 'help'. Just stuff like that which is only made better by people constantly saying "Happy Mother's Day" to me wherever we went because it was likely obvious that I was the mother of all these kids, because nobody in their right mind would willingly take someone else's offspring shopping all day. Despite all that, we managed to get everything on the list, and even got Madeleine's ears pierced, we fed everyone and packed the van and were out of the city by 5:00. Not bad!

Madeleine started making the cringe face before they even touched her ears -
and then suddenly, it was done!

So, we loaded up the van and headed across the border (where once again, I fumbled on the question of how many kids we have, and Serge laughed at me, again) and they don't stop us for long at all because it just seems like too much trouble, which is right - and that is good. We made it back home by 8:00 and droppped in to say Happy Mother's Day to Memere, and threw our filthy kids in the shower to clean them off for school tomorrow, and cleaned Madeleine's earrings and phoned Grandma to say Happy Mother's Day to her, too, and got everyone in bed, and that was good, too.

I wanted to just relax but a trip like that leaves a pile of laundry waiting to be done and a pile of shopping bags stacked on the kitchen table - so I started to get at that when I noticed a big juice box wrapped with duct tape and an envelope that says "Happy Mother's Day" on the outside. I had to take the chance that it was for me. And, inside...


Now, just to figure out how to work the thing! I'm so excited! I can only assume it is to block out the kids if I have another day like I had today! YESSSSSS!!!