Turning Into My Parents By Degrees

As a child, I never understood how my mother could leave in the morning on a Saturday to "run a few errands" and then not return home until dinnertime. I sometimes thought she was just trying to avoid the craziness of a house filled to the rafters with prepubescent girls, but now I'm starting to think that maybe she was, in fact, running errands.

As I've been dabbling in this bizarre new life state known as adulthood (it doesn't feel like I've been here very long, but I guess I've arguably been an adult for the last seven years), I've come to enjoy my Saturdays for the leisure and luxury they provide. When I was a newlywed, I'd sleep in and wake up gradually, eat a late breakfast, talk with my husband over some television show or read a book on the couch next to him, stay in my pajamas until the afternoon, and then discuss with him whether we would see a movie and then eat dinner or the other way around.

Then we had kids. There is no sleeping in. Because my husband is a saint, he lets me sleep in on Saturdays and I return the favor on Sundays, but sleeping in means you get only one extra hour of sleep, because by then you absolutely HAVE to get up and feed the baby and help your little girl use the potty or there will be tears and disaster everywhere.

In any case, Josh and I had planned we'd take the kids to the aviary and then try out that doner kebab restaurant in Sugarhouse (Spitz--amazing! I can't recommend it enough, Get the street cart fries because you'll be sad if you miss them). We realized that in order to coordinate naptimes, we'd need to leave like right then, so we scrambled to dress and ready ourselves and the kids and pack the diaper bag and haul out the double stroller and get in the car already and don't forget the snacks and where is my phone--! ...You get the idea. My point is that we only planned to do two things today: go to the aviary with the kids and try a new restaurant for lunch. That would still allow us to give the kids naps at home and probably do some laundry and ready the apartment for Sunday and make a new quiche for dinner and all those other things we could leisurely do at home.

Well, we spend two hours at the aviary, which was seriously not enough time. I don't know how a miniaturized zoo with only one species of animal can be so fascinating, but the time was gone before I knew it and I felt like I'd barely scratched the surface. If the kids hadn't started acting fussy and antsy, we'd never have realized so much time passed. We hurried them out of the aviary and drove to the restaurant and enjoyed pretty spectacular doners (Josh's was way better than mine, darn it). Then we realized that the shoe store where Josh has been meaning to replace his running shoes was just around the corner. It was late and the kids were already past their bedtimes, but what could it hurt to just drive a bit farther and pick up a new pair of shoes?

So we got some new shoes for Josh. Then we noticed the frozen yogurt shop was just down the street and it had been ages since I'd eaten there. We walked down the street and enjoyed some frozen yogurt. Then we took the kids home, everyone thoroughly exhausted, and I noticed the shirt in the backseat of my car that I'd been meaning to exchange at the mall because the seam tore. I loaded Scarlet back into the car and took her with me because I had been meaning to buy her an easter dress. I exchanged the shirt and drove to the children's store and bought Scarlet a dress. Then I spotted the sporting goods store next door. Josh and I had been meaning to buy a hand weight, so I stepped inside. An hour later, weighed down with bags (and an actual weight), I got back to the car. Then I remembered we were out of milk, so I stopped by the grocery store. By then it was pretty late, so I had to pick up some dinner as well and then I finally, finally got back home.

I had just enough time to eat dinner, give the kids a bath, and put them to bed before eight o'clock was upon me. Where on earth had the day gone? We had planned to do two measly things, and somehow just driving out and about had reminded me of a half a dozen other things I wanted or had intended to do for weeks. I was gone literally all day long and I'm still not sure where the time went. So maybe my mom really WAS just trying to get her errands all done when she disappeared all day. At least, most of the time.