Mama Needs a Martini... or Desperation Breeds Resourcefulness

I don't really drink martinis. It just seemed like a fitting title given my day. But first, let's back up a bit, shall we?

Yesterday I was at Target looking for onesies for Dell's shower and realized that they only carried white ones. It seemed kind of monotonous to buy all white onesies. But Dell and Chris don't know the baby's gender and everything else at Target was either gender-specific or already had graphics on it, which wouldn't work with stenciling.

So, this morning I called Old Navy and they said that they carried some solid colored onesies. Awesome! That should be an easy enough thing to check off my list.

I picked Jude up from school at 11:30. I told the kids that we were going to get lunch and then make a quick stop at Old Navy to get the shirts. I was feeling pretty on top of things, calling Old Navy ahead of time and getting the kids lunch first so they wouldn't be hungry (thus should theoretically be well behaved). Well, as my friend Lisa once observed, whenever the slightest bit of mama smugness creeps in a cream-pie-in-your-face moment is sure to follow.

We get to Old Navy and the onesies that they had were, like Target; gender-specific. Yes, they were in solid colors, but the girls' onesies were gathered at the top, and the boys' were striped in traditionally masculine colors. The kids were getting pretty wild, threats were made on my part, and as I was checking out, I made them sit on a bench in front of our register and wait quietly. I was quickly losing patience, but the lady behind me commented that they were "so well-behaved". Deep breath. Okay, maybe their behavior wasn't that bad after all. She also told me that Babies R us carries onesies in all colors. By this point, it's after 1 o'clock.

We get to Babies R Us and, as seems to be the norm, everything is gender specific or has graphics. The kids' behavior was going from kinda frisky to bad to worse. I was trying to move fast, but was having a hard time finding anything. I was scouring the clearance racks where they happened to have some solid Ts.

Knowing that Dell was planning to cloth diaper, and having cloth diapered Indigo, I knew that I actually prefered Ts to onesies. Onesies can be hard to snap over the big cloth diaper booty and add more hassle to the diaper change. As I'm considering all of this, it suddenly starts to feel like an episode of Supernanny -- and we are the starring family.

Indigo's having a tantrum in the middle of the store because she wants me to buy the stuffed animal baby monitor. Jude is pestering Indigo because he's bored out of his mind. I'm threatening and they aren't listening because I'm not following through. I just want to hurry up and pick out what I need so I can get out of there. But I'm feeling less and less clear headed and more and more frustrated. And slow. I was moving slow! The I'm-running-as-fast-as-I-can-but-as-it-turns-out-I'm-running-in-place kind of slow. Frantic slow. It took me over an hour to get out of there. It was almost 3 o'clock by the time we got home! It's no wonder my kids were getting a little kooky!

Thankfully, the trip wasn't all for naught. Here's what I got:

I bought 12 items, but there might be 17 people coming to the shower, so I had to brainstorm other things that we could stencil. I really wanted to avoid going shopping with the kids again. That's when I realized I had a bunch of organic french terry cotton that I bought awhile ago when I made these washcloths. We love these washcloths and they're really easy to make with my serger.

Washcloths it is! I thought we could add a little stencil to the corner at the shower.