go ahead and laugh...

...i eventually did! =) Yesterday I was sick of being cooped up in the house after a week of yucky colds and I also had the urge to shop so after much thought, I took all 3 kids to Albertville outlet malls to look for some clothes for summer for them. There were a few sales going on and I had a coupon so off we went after W's nap. It had rained all morning, but didn't rain while we were there so that was good. I took the stroller and the baby bjorn along and had 3 stores that I wanted to get to. So I was thinking this wouldn't be so bad!

When we got there, G and baby C were sleeping, so I was going to get everything ready with the stroller and such before waking them up. I had the stroller set up and was going to load my bag in it from the front seat, when the wind started to blow the stroller away. I stepped out to get it, and when I turned back to the van, I miscalculated where I was standing and turned back right into the open door and the corner of it gave me a nice 2 in gash on my forehead. Carp. (we don't say crap in our house because we have little parrots that choose those words to repeat over and over...) Now what was I going to do?! It was bleeding pretty good and it was a good size...should I go get stitches somewhere?...where would I even go for that?...does Albertville have a clinic or hospital?...all the way back to the cities? By this time it was bleeding profusely! So I grabbed kleenex out of my diaper bag and held that to my head and opened the glove compartment to get the first aid kit. Carp. It had never been used and has plastic around it that was impossible to get off, especially while trying to hold a kleenex to my bleeding head! Finally got the plastic off with only a little blood on the front seat. Open the first aid kit to find a hopefully inconspicuous band-aid. Carp. We bought the kid-friendly first aid kit and it only had bright crayon band-aids. Hmmm...should I go with bright red, bright yellow, or bright blue?...i guess blue. Cleaned up my head again (trying not to pass out!) and put the band-aid on really tight. OK. Now I was feeling a little woozy, so I decided to get everyone out and head for Mrs. Field's cookie store to get something to restore blood sugar and energy. Plus make the kids happy too! =) Then if it was still bleeding out of the band-aid when we were done there I would scrap the shopping trip and head for the nearest medical facility that could patch me up. Fortunately, the wound seemed to be fine and feeling renewed after chocolate, we continued our expedition.

After telling this all to S later, he said that he would call me super-mom...if I hadn't done it to myself!

As for the rest of our day? Good! We marched between stores with either C in stroller and me holding W or with W in stroller and C in the bjorn (and G running along besides). All the stores I wanted to go to were kids' clothes stores so they had kid-friendly things to distract G&W and all the kids did really well. We did 2 stores and then it was getting too late to make it back before supper so we went to the expensive coffee shop to eat supper and feed baby C (that is one thing the outlet mall lacks, decent places to eat!). Then we went to our last store, hanna andersson, which is our favorite. Super good quality clothes, but unfortunately really expensive, so I love the outlet store and especially the clearance racks at the outlet. I just can't pay $33.50 for a pair of khaki shorts out of their catalog (I don't pay near that much for khakis for me!), so I picked them up on the clearance rack for $12. Now that still may be more expensive than the $6 Target ones, but they are so soft and will last through 2 boys and beyond! While I shopped (we were the only customers in the store), C slept in the bjorn, W played with the train set, and G talked the ear off of the store clerk. Too cute!

The ride home was the only other unfortunate part of the outing - it started raining, hard, was dark, C was crying, and W was sleepy and I could NOT let him sleep otherwise the night would be shot! But we made it home with some good deals and cute clothes for the kids.

Oh, and by the way, not one person asked or said anything about the bright blue crayon band-aid on my head while we were out!