Lisa, It's Your Birthday, Happy Birthday, Lisa!

Today was my birthday. I had a great night out with Monte last night, just the two of us went to a nice dinner, and did a bit of bar hopping in Santa Monica. I think the kids were in cahoots today, and that their main goal was to present as many obstacles to us as humanly possible. First of all, getting out of the house was a feat in and of itself. The babies decided to take late naps, they resisted any and all attempts to feed them, and we didn't even get out of the house until 4pm. It was much later than planned, so we decided to eat an early dinner at a kid-friendly restaurant, then go to Target to redeem some gift cards that the kids all got for Christmas from their aunt Vikki. I know, very exciting, not only for a Saturday, but for my birthday as well... but I felt like keeping it simple. Anyways, while walking to the restaurant from the parking lot, Monte was holding Atticus, and the girls were fighting over who knows what, when one of them suddenly elbows Monte in the balls- he immediately drops to his knees, several passerby's stare, the girls are completely confused, and he can hardly move, nor talk. After a seemingly very painful minute, he slowly gets up and we somehow make it into the restaurant. Whew! We're in, now we can relax, right? Er... no.

Dinner was ridiculous, the older two girls were just fine coloring their menus, but I wonder what in the hell we were thinking when we decided to go out to a restaurant with all four kids. Every time, we say that we're never going to do it again, but then we do it again- seriously, WHAT THE HELL were we thinking?? If the babies weren't on top of the table, they were under it and if they weren't trying to dump out the salt and pepper shakers, they were jumping on the seats, screaming in their horrible shrieking pay-attention-to-me voices. It was chaos. Monte finally shuffled the kids out of the restaurant, into the mall, while I paid and finished my (much needed) glass of wine. When I met them by a fountain inside, they all seemed happy to be out and about, although Monte was still walking with a bit of a limp.

We went into Pottery Barn Kids, to let them explore for a bit, and I wanted the girls to pick out some new sheets. We spent a few minutes following them all around, picking up toys that the babies were relocating around the store, and of course, the one moment both of us had our noses in our phones, Beatrix decides to climb onto a table to check out the tea party that two baby dolls were enjoying on top of it. A woman (who I witnessed not 3 minutes earlier knocking several boxed of frames off of a shelf, by the way) sneered at us and commented loudly "Is anybody watching her??" while shooting me a dirty look. Okay, first of all, we so were watching our children, if we had not been watching them then Pottery Barn Kids would have nothing left on the shelves because all of their merchandise would be on the floor. Covered in Cheerios. Secondly, Beatrix was in the process of climbing from the chair onto the table, she wasn't technically even on the table yet, so Frame-Knocking-Over-Lady was just an old meanie who could have at least waited until Beatrix was standing on the table, teetering on the brink of death before freaking out on us. Thirdly... yeah... we were sooooo those assholes messing around on our cellphones rather than watching our kids... er.. not that we weren't watching our kids... Suffice to say, we left pretty quickly after that, sheetless, and on a mission to get some bad-ass toys from Target. Woohoo, Saturday night!

We get to Target and tell the kids that they can each pick out one gift within a certain price range, and they spend the next 20 minutes perusing the aisles, eventually settling on some goodies. I had to get tinfoil, and Monte needed something in the opposite direction, so I took the kids my way and we were to meet up in a few minutes by the tinfoil. Who would've thunk that walking 10 aisles with four INSANE children would be such an ordeal? Beatrix wanted to stay in the toy aisle, she would not stay seated in the cart, so I placed and buckled Atticus into the cart, carried Bea, and instructed the girls to walk close to me. The girls start fighting over who gets to push the cart, I start tell them that only I get to push the cart, and of course, as I'm speaking and trying to pry the girls' hands off the cart, Bea squirms out of my arms and runs the opposite direction, I chase her down. Just then, the girls take hold of the cart again, still fighting like maniacs, and begin pushing it full speed ahead towards some shelves full of household cleaners and before I could get to them- BAM!! They ram it right into the shelves, products go flying, Atticus is crying because he was thrown around in his seat, Ariel is crying loudly and holding her face because it was slammed into the cart's handle, and while I'm trying to see what the damage is to everybody, Beatrix takes the opportunity to make another escape, and I chase her down... once again.

Damn you, tinfoil.

So, I imagine at this point that we were quite the sight to see; Baby crying in the cart, 6 year old crying very loudly while holding her now BLOODY mouth, 4 year old trying to explain away- in the whiniest of all possible voices- how absolutely none of this was of her doing, and the other baby still squirming like a maniac in my arms, squealing, screaming, and completely focused on getting back to the toys aisle. I very hastily pick up the items that fell off the shelves and put them back, and rush the kids over to the foil aisle so I could get away from the staring people (because the last thing I needed to hear tonight was more commentary on my awesome parenting skills), and assess the situation. Just then, Monte walks up to us looking completely confused, "What happened?" I've decided never to leave the house again, that's what's happened. So, we went straight home, and opened a bottle of wine. It was very good.

I know this may sound crazy, but it was a great birthday, and I love my nutty family.