Our First Outing

Of course it turned out just fine in the end, but while I was living out the beginning it felt like a complete debacle.

Yesterday morning I had decided to take the three boys (by myself for the first time) to the store. Once I managed to get all three children out of the house and into the van I realized that I forgot to restock the diaperbag with more wipes and diapers. So I decided to err on the side of caution and take the time to run back into the house for those essentials. When I got back to the van the two older boys were playing around instead of sitting in their seats with their straps on waiting to be secured. Also, I smelled a dirty diaper. So I knew I needed to remedy that before leaving: diaper change #1 in the van in the garage. During this time baby decided to soil his diaper: diaper change #2 in the van in the garage.

Now I was finally able to restrap the baby, fasten the other two in their carseats, strap myself in, and back down the driveway. But because this had taken so long, the baby was crying through all of that needing to be nursed again.

So I parked the van 3/4 of the way down our driveway, shut it off, and nursed the baby in the van with the other two asking plenty of questions about why we weren't driving down the street. It was during this time that the baby decided to mess in his recently-fresh diaper: diaper change #3 in the van in the driveway.

So after I fed and changed (again) the baby, I was able to re-strap us, each in our own place, and then restart the van and finish the trip from the garage to the street. And it only took me about 35 minutes!

Compared to this, the rest of the trip was smooth sailing. The only other real hurdle was having the boys (all three) get along while sharing the space allotted in the confines of a shopping cart. heh heh heh