What a Mind Fart of a day!
Left home at 8:50am with the two kids, minus the husband, for the 90km drive to Albany for G Mans weekly speech therapy appointment at 10am. Also on the agenda is the entire grocery shop for Christmas Day, but I was smart – I had done a LIST comprising the menu and itemised and grouped into sections of the shop. Clever me. We also  had to stop by the grog shop for essentials as well as Spotlight because I wanted to make THIS! Spotlight is next to Officeworks and hubby needs a new office chair and I wanted to swing past Kmart as well as I had seen a nifty Christmas Dinnerware set for just $12 last week that I was umming and ahhing about and had decided to buy.
Get 10k’s down the Highway and realise I had committed to most heinous of shopping crimes – I had left the blasted LIST at home. My nice neat list with every itemised bloody thing that I needed to get today was sitting pretty on my computer desk. Normally I would have turned around and come home for it, but we are paying the speechie $80 an hour and I wasn’t going to risk wasting a single cent being late. I considered ringing my neighbour, asking them to break in, take a photo of the list and MMS it to me….. 
I spent the better part of my hour drive trying to remember what was on the damned list and thought I could use the time at the speech therapist googling recipes and rewriting the list. Plan, Stan.
Arrive at the Speechies office at 9:55am and find the door locked. I knock, the boys knock, I call and get her messagebank. We practise our words, play games on the sidewalk jumping cracks, get a grazed knee, pop a magic bandaid on from my handbag, call again, knock some more and eventually give up 20 minutes later. No Speech Therapy today.
The irony of this is not lost on me regarding the bloody list!
So, back in the car and off to the grog shop – 2 kids and a carton of wine on the trolley and we are set. 
Christmas Cheer = Check!
Off to Officeworks to check out the chairs. Kids road test the lot and there is a lot of growling by me to stop them standing on them as well. Lucky the sales lady takes a shining to Master J who is giggling through his dummy and high fiving her and playing peekaboo from behind the chairs. We pay for our chair and the lady wheels it and the boys on the trolley out to the car – they thought it was awesome. 
Hubbys new chair? Check!
Spotlight was right across the carpark so we go in there and make our way right to the back of the store where the foam cones were last week. Nada. All out. Oh well, there goes my Malteser masterpiece this year for the middle of the table. Very disappointed. *insert boo face* G Man wants to climb into all the cute made-up beds in there and go to sleep. Very disappointed. *insert boo face*
Kids back in the car and off we go to Maccas for some lunch, a play and a bit a mummy time with the paper and an iced chocolate. Maccas shares the carpark with the local shopping centre and all I can say is OMG. Not an effing car park for MILES and there are sooo many people trying to get around and find that elusive bay. Reminded me of Uni when you arrive five minutes before your lecture is about to start and there are 100 people fighting over 3 bays and stalking people as they are leaving campus. Mania!! After about 20 minutes of skulking around and getting totally naff with idiot L plate drivers trying to navigate around the car park like a plate of beans negotiating their way out of a cows digestive system, I thought I would just give up and go to the Woolies five minutes up the road which you can always get a bay at. Then it occurred to me that if I did that I wouldn’t be able to get my lovely Christmas stuff from KMart nor would I get that relaxing cuppa and paper at Maccas. Then Master J announced he needed a bum change and the toilets are much nicer at Maccas so the decision was made. After another 10 minutes we managed to jag a park pretty close to Maccas but a country mile from the shops. 
My initial plan had been to park at Maccas and then move the car closer to the shops but you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to try that today.
So – bum change, a play, an iced chocolate, some lunch and a relaxing read of the daily news. Check!
We get about 50 metres from Maccas and G Man announces he needs a poo – so about turn and back to the nice loos. All bowels empty? Check!
Walk the country mile to the shops and head into KMart for my Christmas dinnertable pretties. Got an 8 place dinner setting, 4 matching platters a and a matching gravy boat for under 50 bucks. Gotta be happy with that! Take the kids to see the toys – they are masochists – come away with nothing (“can we get that? No, you have enough presents under the tree. What about that? No. That?. No. I bet thats not under the tree. Can we get that? You’ll have to wait and see wont you? No.”) Get to the checkout and see a queue from the till past Womens wear and back to Menswear nearly at the blasted toys again containing about 20 people and their trolleys. Dear Lord! Fortunately the boys spy Santa wandering around the centre and are very good for me as they are hoping to get a lolly or two as Mum was so mean in the toy section.
Pretty Christmas dinner set and NO TOYS purchased? Check!
Off to do the grocery shop. Normally I would have taken the boys and the trolley and emptied my rather bulky purchases into the car, but as it was frikkin forever away I really couldnt be bothered. AND as I had forgotten my list I realised that I was prolly going to have to do another smaller shop at the IGA which is only 40 km’s away on Monday for all the stuff I was bound to forget.
So Master J is in the trolley seat and G Man gets kicked out of the trolley much to his chagrin, which he demonstrates very clearly. Oh well. Moving on. Mentally running through my list we race around Coles grabbing this and that, some of which we needed, some impulse buys and some bribing snacks for the boys.  I am methodically putting items back on the shelves that Master J is depositing into the trolley as fast as his little hands can reach. This is a bit awkward in the F & V section but I really don’t need 3 turnips – I figure people peel those before they cook them so its OK??  We are about half way round when I realise that Master J has taken his socks and shoes off. I realise this because some poor shopper came up to me with a small smelly frog sock and asked if it belonged to me and mine? Awww crap – thanks, yes it did. Sorry about that. Then I also realise we are a shoe short. We backtrack a few aisles and then I acknowledge the futility of actually finding it when he could have put it on a random shelf or chucked it under an aisle even. The trolley is full to overflowing and I head for the checkout – not QUITE as bad as KMart but pretty hideous. Fortunately the bribes are holding up and we manage to escape relatively unscathed. The checkout lady hadnt had her happy pills though. Shame. She was impervious to Master J and his charms.
Make the LONG trek back to the car, unload the trolley and the boys and dump the trolley between my car and the one next door (shhh – but I wasn’t about to walk it the 100 metres to the trolley bay and back with the boys in tow again). Negotiate getting out of the darned carpark again and we are on the road home. Both boys fall asleep within 5 minutes. Home an hour later, 6 hours after we left. All shopping brought in and unpacked, dinner cooked for the boys, still waiting on Mr Point Five to get home (he gets to put his new chair together!) and I am shattered! Plus, I STILL have to finish the grocery shop off on Monday!
What did I learn today??? 
Nothing really – it will prolly go just like this again next year 🙂
PS – this is not a sponsored post from Maccas, I have no affiliation with them at all, never will – I just really appreciate the sanity their playground gives me on occasion – I actually prefer KFC but no respite there 🙂