runnin' runnin' and runnin' runnin'

In real time it was only about an hour. But in baby time it felt like a month. Just a little jaunt to Target, I thought. Walk around, try some stuff on, look at sales. Something to break the day up a bit; get us girls out of the house. 

My first mistake was thinking I could try clothes on with the baby around. The finding of things to try on was easy. The hard part came in the dressing room. Did you know that the space under the dressing room door is the perfect size for a baby to crawl under? It went something like this: 

Remove an article of clothing. 

Drag Penny back from under the door. Give her my keys to play with.

Try on a shirt.

Drag Penny back from under the door. Give her the keys again.

Remove shirt because it makes my skin look green.

Drag Penny back from out in the hall. Give her my shoe. (What? She likes shoes.)

Try on shorts while trying to block door with my feet.

Drag Penny back from under the door after she crawled right over me. 

Repeat through two pairs of shorts, three t-shirts and a dress. 

I didn't buy anything because I had no idea if any of it looked good since I really had no chance to look in the mirror.

So clothes shopping was a mistake. How about just regular browsing. Not too much maneuvering with that. Except that by then Penny was poopy. I made a trip to the bathroom to change a stinky diaper and then back to wandering around. Five minutes later I realized I had to use the bathroom. So back to the front of the store we went. Have you ever tried to use the bathroom while holding a baby? You should try it sometime using a raccoon or maybe a ferret. That'll be close enough to the real experience. There's wiggling and squirming and crying that they want down but you don't dare put those little butt cheeks anywhere near the disgusting public restroom floor. So finally that was done. More shopping. By this time I still hadn't even gotten to the other side of the store.

But now Penny wanted a snack. So in with the Cheerios, up with the sippy cup and then I watched as the container with Cheerios was thrown across the aisle and I was so glad that I had already put the lid back on. Take a drink. Throw the cup. Take a snack. Throw the container. Then she didn't want to ride in the cart anymore. So there I was, holding her, pushing the cart while still trying to feed her a snack. At one point I was hunched over the cart trying to steer with my elbows when an employee started following me. He narrowed his eyes, suspiciously looked over the contents of my cart and, wrinkling his nose, asked if he could help me find something. Having given all of my patience to Penny, I responded coldly, in my best leave-me-alone voice, that we were peachy. He actually sniffed and walked away. But continued to follow us discreetly around the store. If I hadn't been so worn out already from all the child wrangling I might have found it funny. Instead it was infuriating. So I finished up, paid and left. 

Next time I think I'll find that employee and have him watch the baby while I shop.