500 Babies Go To Target

Here are the details of the trip to Target I referred to in the previous post:

My plan was to put the babies in the double stroller and J. would ride in the cart. I had pushed/pulled both at the same time before (at Home Depot while Billy was buying wood.) So it should work at Target, right? At first I thought I was pretty cool, maneuvering stroller and cart each with one hand. The kids were happy and quiet, and I was feeling confident. Midway through the trip, J. started getting antsy. It was nap time, after all. He then stood up in the cart, and after I threatened time out without really thinking through how I was going to implement it, I tightened the seat belt just about as tight as it would go, preventing him from standing up. Ha, I thought. Who's next?

A few minutes later D. wanted a bottle, and after M. saw me getting it out she wanted one too. So I pulled over by the gift wrap and fed both babies at once. "Now that's what I call multi-tasking," a shopper commented as he walked by. You have no idea, I thought. After several minutes of feeding, D. was still crabby and J. was getting restless again. So I decided to switch them around, putting D. in the cart and J. in the stroller. At first J. liked it, but as soon as he realized he was even more restrained than before, he started complaining. D. wasn't totally happy, either, but we had to keep going. Then M. started crying, and I knew she wouldn't stop unless I took her out. So there I was holding M. and still with two wheeled vehicles containing one child each to move along. Throughout the next 15 minutes or so, I tried 4 times to put M. back in the stroller but she arched her back each time and wouldn't let me buckle her in. By this time, I'm beginning to feel stuck. Do I try to check out like this? Do I abandon the cart? But how do I get them all out of the store? I said a little prayer and decided to try musical seats again. While holding M., I pulled J. out of the stroller and told him to go tickle D.'s toes in the cart while I switched M. to the front seat of the stroller. Miraculously, she didn't cry. But the "tickle D.'s toes tactic" didn't last long enough because I looked up to see J. heading the other way down the aisle. I snatched him up, put D. in the back seat of the stroller, reclined it, and gave him another bottle. J. went back into the cart and we hightailed it out of there.

Throughout the trip I made eye contact with no one because I didn't want to see the looks of surprise, amusement, pity or whatever else people might think when they see the spectacle that is the 500 Babies.

Don't feel too sorry for me, though, because somehow I still managed to spend over $70 in the midst of it all.