Sunday, July 15, 2012

Sunday Morning Mayhem

For us, Sunday morning is often Costco day.  It’s a ludicrous thing to do.  “Let’s go to Costco on the most crowded day of the week with a four year old and an almost two year old.  That will be so much fun!” said no one ever.

But to Costco we go.  I am a creature of habit, and I like to do my shopping for the week on Sundays, crowds be darned.  I had the girls completely ready to go by 9:30 AM in the hopes we could pull in by ten and beat most of the after-church mob.  To my knowledge, Chris was still sleeping, so I sent the girls in to say, “goodbye” before we left.

I was mistaken.  Chris wasn’t actually sleeping, but using the bathroom.  With the door wide open.  I got there in time to witness this sequence of events: 

A.   Nicole ran up and threw her little arms around Daddy’s left leg.

B.  Allison accosted him from the other side, simultaneously waving and trying to figure out how it was possible for one to pee standing up. 

C.  Chris turned to block Allie’s view and at the same time tried to dislodge the small toddler attached to his calf.

When I was finished laughing, I herded the girls downstairs and in to the mud room to put on shoes.  That is when Allison looked me in the eye and asked evenly, “Can you tell me what boys have growing out of their bottoms?”  She placed her fist in the appropriate place to clarify.  (I should explain: everything between the belly button and the top of the legs, on the back or front, is known to Allie simply as, “the bottom”.  Thus far, I have not corrected her.)

I responded as casually as possible, “That’s called a penis.”  I hoped that I might get lucky and the conversation would be over, but I could see the wheels turning behind her big brown eyes.  That’s when she dropped the bomb: “Mommy, will you please tell me everything you know about the penis?”

I fumbled for one more way out.  “Um, sure honey.  In the car.”  I thought she might forget by the time we got everybody buckled in, but no such luck.

The moment I put the car in reverse, Allie’s little voice rang out clearly, “Ok.  Let’s talk about the penis now.”

I wanted to be as honest as possible, without telling her more than she needed to know.  All those commercials about how important it is to have open communication with your children scared the bejeezus out of me.  What if I did it wrong and she felt like she couldn’t speak to me about these things, and she ended up pregnant and STDd at 14?!?  I should have called that hotline when I had the chance.

I settled for telling her not everything I  know about the penis, but what I thought she should know at this age.  Basically, that boys have it and girls don’t, and that it is where their ‘pee-pee’ comes out.  I also tried to emphasize that while it was perfectly okay for her to talk about it with mommy or daddy, it wasn’t something she needed to discuss with other adults or her friends at this time.

There were a few more questions, but thankfully, Allie is a four year old and has the attention span of one, so she suddenly asked, “Mommy, can you tell me about how my heart works?”

Honestly, I couldn’t.  But I gratefully launched into a barrage of every detail I could remember from highschool anatomy class until the conversation took another turn.  “Mommy, is it true that at every birthday I get more toys?  And more cards?”  Thank goodness for the four year old attention span.

It was about this time that we pulled into the parking lot of Costco, and we waited with the other heathens to charge the doors at promptly ten o’clock.  The shopping trip went much as it usually does, with a lot of “Can we get that?”, “No.”, and a side of “Nicole, stop poking your finger into the chocolate chip cookies.”

We made it through the check out line (and the line for people who forgot to use their coupons) before getting in line for our celebratory hotdogs.  Allison asked for her half-dollars, which she had earlier stashed in the pocket of my elastic waisted shorts that I’ve been living in since I was 9 months pregnant with Nicole.  I distractedly told her to wait a minute as I attempted to juggle Nicole, two soda cups, and two hotdogs.

I was about to fill the first drink at the beverage station when I felt my shorts slide down to my ankles.  Allison, in her effort to retrieve her precious half-dollars from my pocket, had pantsed me.  It’s possible that if I weren’t holding so many things, I could have pulled my shorts back up with out any one noticing.  It’s possible that I could have set everything down and quietly pulled them back up with just a few people noticing.  But in my shock and horror of finding myself in the food court of Costco without any pants, I yelled, “ALLISON!!” 

I did not use my inside, six inch voice.  I did not use my six foot voice.  I idiotically bellowed, “Allison,” loudly enough that everyone in the crowded store turned to stare.  At least I assume they did.  I was too busy being mortified to get an accurate head count.  But I guarantee at least a few of the ‘after-church’ crowd now has an image burned into their brain that they wish they didn’t.

I guess I shouldn’t have laughed at Chris’ predicament this morning.  Karma’s a b#%^&.