Caught in the act, and I don't care!

You know those celebrity tabloids that show photos of your favorite stars looking schlubby or doing something embarrassing, like walking around with a wedgie or dripping mustard all over their clothes?

I feel a little bit like a celebrity today.

Last night, we dragged the whole family to Target to buy a few things we needed for the house and for a cookie-decorating thing we're doing Saturday with our friends Mark and Kelly and their kids.

It was right after work, so the kids were hungry for dinner. Lester bought hot dogs and grilled cheese and popcorn (dinner of champions!) and set up in the store's little dining area, while I power-shopped. I couldn't find one item I needed, but my check-out lady told me where to find it, so after paying for all my other things, I lugged Clair back with me to the far end of the store to get it. When I came back to the dining area (still without my item), Cary and Dean were spastically rolling the shopping cart into empty tables, spilling popcorn everywhere and just generally bouncing off the walls. There was NO settling them, so I just ditched the hope of finding chocolate-covered pretzels and said, "Let's go!"

We hustled out of there (to get our tree, yay! Which Dean picked out. Of course.) and got home so late that it was all we could do to wrangle the three over-tired crazies into bed and CONK out. No Scandal. No Game of Thrones. Just sleep. (Well, Lester folded two baskets of laundry, awesome husband that he is, but *I* fell flat on my face.)

Anyway -- it was all just another day in the Davis household. Until I got a message this morning from a colleague on Facebook who said she thought she'd seen us at Target and wanted to know if we'd been there the night before.Why, yes. That was us! Awww, we could have stopped and chatted. Aww.

But as the morning wore on, I started thinking: What exactly did she see?? Did she see Clair pick up that stray chunk of hot dog from under the table across from us, and me do the TV-slow-motion dive to knock it out of her chubby little hands just before she chewed on it?

Did she tsk tsk at how I had lazily clapped Clair's hair into a frizzy 'fro on the top of her head - and that she had "runch" all over her shirt? (That's what she said when I asked her what on Earth she spilled all over her clothes. "Runch.")

Did she judge me about the veritable carpet of popcorn we left for some probably-pissed-off employee to clean up? (I did whisper "Sorry about the mess!" to the random Target employee who was sitting there taking her break, but she just glowered, so I don't know if that means "You're forgiven, poor harried mother of three" or "Eff you and happy new year!" But I digress.)

Could she hear  -- all the way from back in the section with the Christmas trees -- my boys' complete and total inability to use anything close to an inside voice? Ever?  [Seriously. WHY are they so LOUD? Dang.]


I thought we had been anonymous in Target -- the ragtag bunch of us, all hastily bundled in mismatched hats and gloves, ketchup-stained, loud, hungry and unable to find chocolate-covered pretzels or mini M&Ms, despite two trips to the back of the store! DAMMIT.

But we had been spied. By someone who knew us! This must be how Oprah feels!

If I had written this blog post in my 20s, the moral would have been, "And this is why you must always look your best when out in public!"

Thank GOD I'm no longer in my 20s.  Because I didn't care one bit. This is the blessing of getting older and less concerned about what the world thinks of you.

And I know that my colleague truly wouldn't have judged -- she's a cool person, and a Mom herself, who was running late to pick up her own kid.

But even if she did judge, it wouldn't have mattered. My kids are not always magazine-ready; they don't always behave well in public. Hot dogs are messy; popcorn even moreso. The gloves that match the hats sometimes get lost.

And so what?

As a mother in my 40s, the moral of THIS blog post is: If you want chocolate-covered pretzels from Target, to make reindeer cookies for your crazy, messy kids, you'd better get 'em early, because they sell out.

Beach Training Trip 2012: Success!

We came home yesterday from Beach Training Trip 2012.

The verdict? Resounding success!! 

Color me totally surprised.

Despite my lack of pre-planning, we got out of the house on time and the boys managed the ride to Delaware without any whining or crying. Once there, we had a ton of fun! 

We got the boys to the beach four times (once even to the edge of the water!), rode a trolley, chased sea gulls, looked for sea shells, made new friends, rode kiddie rides (with minimal crying), took walks, ate frozen custard (wherehaveyoubeenallmylife?) and all sorts of other amazing junk food, and had an all around action-packed, but somehow relaxing, great time. I'm shocked. And elated. 

I honestly can't wait to do it again next year. Maybe we can even do a full week! (I cannot believe I'm saying this!)


Now...photos!!

At first, the boys would not even get close to the water. So I used the wagon as a buffer. They enjoyed watching the waves hit the shore -- from the safety of their vehicle.

Clair was an ANGEL the entire trip. She slept through the night in her Pack 'n Play, and rode with the punches for whatever it was we were doing. She even took a nap on the beach, attracting all kinds of people to come over and "awwww" at her. That's my girl.

Skill that must be learned: Eating food on the beach without getting sand all over everything. I'm pretty sure my children consumed more sand this trip than actual food.

The band-aids? Cary fell and scraped his head pretty bad. Once Dean saw that he had a band-aid, he had to have one, too. So this is how they walked around town, looking like rough 'n tumble city kids. Twins with matching "injuries" is cause for a whole lotta people stopping to ask questions, in case you didn't know.

You think I'm joking when I tell you that my boys do not smile, even when they're having fun. Because seriously, they thought this trolley ride was amazing! Can you tell? Of course not.

The trolley driver hated his job, and complained the entire time he was driving around. He also stopped the trolley in a shopping plaza to buy  a carton of cigarettes. This was hysterical to Lester and me. Reminds us of family members. LOL.

On our last day, we went to Rehoboth, to check out a new beach and some new scenery. The boardwalk there is hoppin'! But we had to stop every 6 seconds to let the boys grab fistfuls of popcorn, so eventually we got wise and just sat down and ate and people-watched until their was nothing left but butter and kernels. Dean might have eaten those too if we didn't throw the box away. (This is also where I got the frozen custard. ZOMG!!)

The boys rode in "fire trucks" and enjoyed it. But then, we tried them on "race cars" -- same ride, just different vehicles -- and Cary cried midway through. That was the end of the rides. But we got them on two! So we consider this a success!

My favorite photo of my two favorite beachcombers. Gracious, I love this pic!

The whole clan. We'll see you next year!