Trials in Target...

It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. In fact I would say it was probably more entertaining.

I was off today because of MLK day so I decided to put my grocery shopping off until today. I packed up the troops and headed for Target. I know the prices are a bit higher, but when I have the kids with me it's easier because I let them look at the toys and games if they behave. I head south from my driveway --- this always causes a commotion with E because he thinks that if we head north we are going to Nana & Do's and if we head south we are going somewhere else. He never likes "somewhere else". So he throws a fit for a couple of blocks and calms down. We pull into the parking lot --- he throws a fit again just to remind me that he doesn't want to go "somewhere else". Then he calms down. I hop out of the car and head to the back to get out his wheelchair.

*E actually is mobile, but he weighs over 120 lbs at his young age of 8. Which translates into him tiring very easily (after about 5-10 minutes) or he simply decides he doesn't want to do something and sits down in the middle of the parking lot or grocery aisle until he decides he's good and ready to go. You try moving 120 lbs of hitting, kicking and biting...it's just not possible!

Back to the story...I open the back door and realize his wheelchair was not in the car. I took him on a walk yesterday and I forgot to put it back in. Ugh!!! I decide I'll try to get him to walk to the front door and hopefully there will be a wheelchair inside that we can borrow. I absolutely HAVE to have milk and I'm thinking maybe I can get that accomplished at the very least. E seems to enjoy the change of pace. We enter the front door and I don't see any wheelchairs...I decide to turn around and load the kids back into the car and go get the wheelchair and come back. After all, I'm ONLY going to get milk, but it's always at the VERY BACK of the store and there's no way we will make it. There is one minor flaw in my plan.... I entered through the "wrong" door. Those of you that know E know how much he absolutely LOVES videos. Before I knew it he's running to the video aisle. I follow with the other two chasing after him. He's going up and down the kids aisle pulling off all sorts of movies. He looks at each one for a couple of seconds and then clumsily tries to put it back or hands it to one of his brothers.

Now I know I'm stuck. My only hope of survival is to catch him at the appropriate time, distract him and get him out the door quickly. I've found that if I catch him off guard and then grab his hand and take off running with him, he usually doesn't know what hit him until I get my way. So I say "E, do you want to get french fries?" - His favorite - He looks up at me for a moment. And I say "Come on, lets go get french fries". I grab his hand, and we take off running as I'm handing the videos that he has in his hand to P and tell him to put them away and hurry up. So here are the four of us running (more like a power walking because E doesn't run that well) out the door of Target. I'm sure they think that we were trying to steal something, but I got him out the door and in the car before he realized what was going on! Mission accomplished!

Now I still needed to get the milk. So we headed home and threw the chair in the car. I decided not to go back to Target because it was farther away and I just didn't want to deal with it again. So we headed north to WalMart. Of course E was thrilled because he thought we were going to Nana & Do's. I kept repeating over and over again "We're going to the store, E" Nevertheless he threw a minor fit in the WalMart parking lot, but we got in, got our milk (and even the rest of our groceries) and got home...now I'm exhausted!