Little Shopping Trip of Horrors

I got some bad news recently. The preschool that we are sending our boys to this year, and which we could only afford because their tuition was unbelievably low, tripled the tuition for next year. It is still a good deal compared to other preschools. Most parents are unhappy but undeterred. Most parents will not have three preschool-aged children next year.
Marc and I crunched numbers and concluded that we just could not afford the new higher tuition times three. I got a little choked up when I handed them my letter today informing the school that Gabriel and Elijah would not be returning. I knew I would miss those 2 1/2 hours, four days a week when I only had two children and could run errands without fear of losing control of the situation. However, I had convinced myself that it wouldn't be so bad. Gabriel and Elijah are getting older. It had been a while since I took them all to the store... surely things would have improved.
I tried it today. It was not so good.
It wasn't even the worst shopping trip ever. Nobody climbed the shelves, squirted cleaning solution in their eyes, licked yogurt off the floor, opened unpaid for groceries, sat in an empty cashier's station and started pressing buttons, tried to shoplift or yelled and screamed. "What bad behaviors are left?" you might wonder. My friends, there are plenty. First, there was just the general chaos of having three small bodies running around my cart and constantly getting in the way of other shoppers despite my pleas to "Please put one hand on the cart unless mommy asks you to go get something." Then, there was the arguing about whose turn it was to get something off the shelf and put it in the cart which included blowing raspberries and elbowing each other. Sometimes, I am tempted to just buy three of everything to avoid these fights. Of course there was also a lot of whining and begging for grocery items made of pure sugar like marshmallows and shiny foil-wrapped Easter candy. Benjamin was no saint either. It does not seem to matter how tight I make those little belts on the grocery carts, he wiggles out. Invariably, I look away for a moment and when I look back he is standing up on the seat, one hand clutching the cart and the other extended like some sort of baby surfer. Sometimes he responds to my exasperated face with an "uh-oh" and a smile so big I can see all six of his teeth.
All of this craziness was happening and I was handling it pretty well. I did get some looks. Older women often chastise me about Benjamin's surfing habit and a new father out with his wife and baby looked positively terrified that one day his child might start behaving like my boys. I wanted to reach out and pat his shoulder and say, "There, there. You only have one. And she's a girl." Anyway, as I was saying, despite the insanity I still felt in control. Then we hit the produce section.
Picking produce is the most dangerous part of any shopping trip. Pay too much attention to the fruits and vegetables, and your kids might pull a disappearing act. Pay too much attention to the kids, and you end up with rotten tomatoes in your bag. I made the former error. I was choosing a cauliflower when from behind me I heard, "Pickle fight!" I whipped around to see my three boys sword fighting with English cucumbers. They were each wielding two, one for each hand, and were wildly slashing the air. Luckily, the cucumbers seemed to be unhurt and I hurriedly replaced them and shooed my boys back to the cart. At this point, I knew we had reached the limit of their mildly bad behavior and were fast approaching catastrophe. We made it through the checkout line with only a few minor incidents. (Elijah jumped in and out of the cart a few times, David John tried to fill the belt with gum and other check-out items, and Gabriel put up a sign that indicated our lane was closed. Several shoppers went to other lanes before I noticed what he had done.) I was relieved when I had all four boys and my bags of groceries safely stowed away in the van.
I am REALLY going to miss preschool next year.