A Case of the "Mom"days

The day had been going well. Maybe a little too well. House was clean, Jake took a nap, so it was time for some errands, right? That's what we do. After a trip to the bank, to a friends house, to the park, etc. It was time for Groceries. I drove my car to the grocery store.

For all of you who know my child- you know grocery shopping is probably my least favorite thing right now. Impossible to keep my child in the cart. Impossible to keep him from pulling things off the shelves. Impossible to keep him from the display cases with stuffed animals. Fine. He's a year and a half. I do my best as any mother would. I still need milk and bread.

The second half of the shopping trip- I am holding him in one arm (while he is trying to do death dives head first out of my grasp) and pushing the cart with the other hand. He is squealing and squawking. I grab the last few things I need and make it to the check out counter.

I am so excited to get out of there that when the checker asks for my club card I just tell him my phone number instead of searching through my purse for my keys. (Of course I had to try three or four different numbers to get the right one.)

I get Jacob a balloon on the way out. Anything to help get him buckled into the carseat. Put the groceries away. Start searching for keys. NO KEYS. No keys ANYWHERE! Look on the ground. Nope. Empty every little thing out of my purse. Nope. Under or between the seats? Nope.

I start the treck back into the store and guess what? My flip flop breaks. (I knew I shouldn't have bought flipflops from the dollar section of target. What was I thinking?) So there I am with one shoe. A child deparately trying to keep a hold of his balloon. Asking if people had seen my keys. Nope. A bag boy offers to come look with me, and when he sees that I'm holding a broken shoe in one hand and a hyper-mobile toddler in the other, offers me one of the motorized carts....

Oh you should have seen it.

A fully capable mom, barefoot, with toddler in lap, balloon in the face, driving a motorized cart up and down the aisles searching for her keys. To make it even better- the only button Jacob wanted to press was REVERSE. Every few seconds we would stop, the cart would start beeping, and I would quickly throw it back into forward to avoid any unnecessary attention.

I didn't know whether to cry or laugh. Fortunately, my motherly instinct won and I laughed my way through the whole thing. At least Jacob was getting some good entertainment. He said hi and waved to everyone we passed.

Well. No keys people. Its a total mystery. Were they stolen? Are they beneath the milk refridgerator? Did my child eat them while I wasn't looking? Am I going NUTS????

We returned our frozen food. Waited in the car. Went back a couple times to see if they had been turned in. Waited in the car a little longer until Stephen got back from school. (I was too embarrassed to call a neighbor- having no shoes and all.)

I went home with a sunburn on my left arm, and poor Jacob got home without a balloon.

But today is a new day. The sun is shining. And perhaps someone found my keys while restocking the apple bin?

Here's hoping...