Shoulda gone with my gut

You know when you get those gut feelings about certain things? And then you go ahead and do it anyways and realize you should have gone with your gut?

Yeah...that happened to me tonight.

The main piece to our annual Christmas craft was on sale this week so I figured I'd take the kids to Micheal's tonight and pick it up. And as long as I was over there I figured I stop over at the Factory Card Outlet and pick up an anniversary card for my husband. And considering the amount of time it takes to get three kids in and out of two different stores, I figured I would just go ahead and pick up dinner.

Should be easy enough, right?

Well, we were off to a great start! I got rock star parking at Micheal's and we made the Bricker Train (holding hands) and got safely inside. I put Ella in the seat portion of the miniature grocery cart and Josh and Lauren followed behind.

Lauren immediately started pushing the cart, jumping on the cart, standing in front of the cart, etc. Each time I would tell her to stop, yet like Lauren does best...she continued. So after searching the entire store we finally located the item(s) and we loaded up the cart and headed to the checkout lane.

When shopping with three small children, the checkout lane is pretty much the equivalent to the finish line. By that time usually the worst of the shopping trip is over and the only thing to contend at that point is getting the kids past all the candy without spending an extra $5 on mini M&Ms.

Micheal's is notirious for only having a few lanes open and tonight was no exception - two lanes and at least six customers in each lane. And, of course, all of their Christmas candy is out and Josh and Lauren were running between all the displays shouting, "Can we get this?"

Finally it was our turn to pay. I told Lauren to get off the cart one last time, turned to pay with my debit card and that's when I heard the woman behind me scream.

I turned just in time to see the cart flip over on top of Lauren and Ella fly out of her seat.

Before I go any further, they are both fine. Ella actually landed on top of Lauren and Lauren has enough of the sturdy Bruni gene in here that it takes more than a miniature shopping cart to do any real damage.

Of course they both started crying immediately - more from shock than anything. I immediately lifted Ella up and tried to get the cart off of Lauren. The lady right behind me was actually an employee shopping so she grabbed Ella and I attempted to console Lauren.

Meantime, the manager was being paged by another employee and the sixteen year-old cashier was repeatedly asking me what my zip code was - because that was obviously the most important thing at that moment.

And that's about the time when Ella realized she was being held by a stranger.

Holy freak-out!

I can only imagine what the rest of the customers were thinking as they watched the entire thing unfold. I should have turned to them and said, "I assure you. I will not be having any more children to screw up."

All this for a few homemade Christmas crafts. **sigh** That'll teach me.

Even after all that we still stopped at Factory Card Outlet to get my dear husband a card. When he called during his break tonight I told him that while a card may seem like nothing much, what I went through to get it certainly made up for it.

One half hour later waiting in line at Subway and we pulled into the drive way at 6:45.

I think I will sleep well tonight. And this Christmas craft better be a good one!