Surviving Porter's

Porter's is a craft stored filled with lots of super shiny, breakable things that are all over the place. It is NOT kid friendly in any way shape or form. No mother in her right mind would ever dare enter there alone with 4 children, until now.

We were headed to my mom's and she asked me to pick up some vinyl from Porters for her on the way. Simple enough. Everything was going as planned. I picked Gavin up from school and we drove to Porters where there was a parking spot front and center, even better. I put on the music the kids requested, gave them each a snack to make sure they were extra happy and got out of the van. I was reaching for the front door when I heard, "mom, I have to go potty"... and my happy place was now a million miles away. It was Gavin.

The vinyl is literally on the front aisle. All I had to do was walk in the door, grab the vinyl, pay for it and leave. That's it. Two minutes tops.

I stressed about leaving Gavin with the kids for that long, but now that he had to go potty I had no choice but to take all of them into the sparkly, breakable abyss with me. The bathroom is in the very back of the store so we carefully walked back there. I felt like a bull in a china shop for the first time ever in my life. We made it to the bathroom (a one seater) so the Littles and I waited outside.

They had all three just woke up from their naps so were extra full of unspent energy. They were running around and hiding behind fixtures from each other and me. I finally got them all together which is extra hard with 3 kids and two hands. 

I tried to play games with them to keep them occupied. I told them they had to stay on the gray squares because the white ones had sharks... they jumped off the gray squares and were pretending to chase and jump on the imaginary sharks.

I checked on Gavin who was taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R only to find out he was going #2. He is a very slow pooper, this was not good news. I decided to pretend we were a train and I was going to have them follow me, but that just started a fight over who was going to be the caboose and then there was a mutiny over who was going to be the engine even though I told them I was. 

Gavin finally came out, I grabbed the vinyl and we got in the line which was super long by now (there was no one in line when we first walked in). The aisle was lined with all kinds of kid unfriendly things. I was doing a pretty good job of keeping the Littles hands out of things but Gavin was touching everything.

How do you convince a 6 year old that even though he is careful with things he still can't touch them because then everyone else will want too? I wanted so badly to just walk out the door leaving a blank check and the packaging on the counter, but decided against it. The woman in front of me let me go in front of here when it was her turn and I'm not sure if it was because of the circus show we were putting on or if she was just being nice. Either way I was so glad to be that much closer to being out of there.

I told them that everything in the store was hot lava so not to touch it which started another game. They would touch something and then squeal and say "hot lava is burning my hand" and then do it again. At this point I gave up on everything except just trying to keep them next to me. 

(I hate going out in public now with the triplets because people stare at you like your a crazy breeder. I use to sometimes get looks with Mason and Chloe because they are so close, but now when I go in with three kids 3 and under the looks and double takes are that much worse. Especially when they aren't listening to me and being typical toddlers. I have really had to bite my tongue a lot with some of the comments I hear. I typically don't care what people think, but when people are judging me without know the full situation, it's all I can do to just smile and keep walking.) 

I paid for the vinyl and then realized Chloe and Foster were missing. They were over on the bead wall walking back and forth with their hands outstretch into the beads as they walked. I got them and we walked past one last gauntlet of shiny breakable Christmas glass and we were free at last! Never again will you catch me in that store with my kids!