The two's, they can be oh-so-trying. Yesterday, Sammy was in rare form. From the moment we got home, he was throwing things, knocking all of his letter magnets off the fridge, and just generally being a pain in the patootie. After numerous time-outs, I finally banished him to his room and told him not to come out until he felt better.

I was surprised he stayed in there, but he did. I could hear him kicking his walls and jumping on the bed. After about ten minutes, he came out and happily announced, "I feel better now!" And wouldn't you know, that was the last problem I had with him all night. I think maybe he just needed to blow off some steam.

Last Friday was a work holiday, and I decided to keep the kids home from daycare. When I picked them up on Thursday afternoon, I mentioned that they wouldn't be in the next day. One of the infant teachers said, "Oh! Then we need to quick paint Natalie's hands before you go." (It was for an Easter art project - a ducky whose wings were the kids' handprints.) I had already picked up Natalie - who always gets so wiggly with excitement when she sees me - and had to put her in the high chair so they could finish up her project. Her face crumpled, and it was plain to see that her little heart was broken at the thought that I wasn't taking her home with me after all. Man, I'm going to miss this stage. No one else gets that excited to see me.

Then Friday morning, I took the kids along to do errands. Remind me never to do that again. Taking one with is no big deal, but the two of them together makes it very complicated. First of all, it was snowing hard and the parking lots were a mess. Before we even got to the first store, Natalie had fallen asleep in her carseat, and I didn't want to wake her, so I took the seat into the store. Those carseats weigh about 20 pounds, even without a baby in them. Then because the parking lot was so slick, I carried Sammy in my other arm. So that was about 60 pounds of kids plus accessories to lug through the slushy, slippery parking lot.

I put Sammy in the seat of the cart, and Natalie's carrier in the cart basket. That didn't leave much room for groceries, so I had to get creative with piling things in and around the kids. By the time we got to the checkout, Natalie had woken up and was voicing her unhappiness at being stuck in the carseat. I could barely hear the cashier over her protests.

Stop number two - Kohl's. They have a different type of cart there - like a stroller with a basket attached to the back. Now I know they have double strollers there, but I couldn't find one. So that meant I could only have one kid in the stroller at a time. I could see that was going to be trouble. Natalie started off in the seat while Sammy wandered off walked on his own. It's really hard to look at clothes when you are trying to track a moving toddler, so after about 10 minutes I gave up and decided to come back another time, ALONE. One cute thing happened at the store, though. Sammy found a friendly older lady and started chatting her up. He walked back to the stroller, patted Natalie on the head, and said to the lady, "This is my sister."

Stop number three - the library. I knew Natalie was probably hungry by now, so in the parking lot, I got her out of her seat to feed her before we went inside. That's when I smelled that old familiar smell. Sure enough - she had a blowout. And I had no spare outfit for her. I should know better by now, than to leave the house without a spare outfit for the baby. Last week, I took her to the chiropractor (three minutes away!) for a quick adjustment, and she had a blowout on the way. This morning, she had a blowout on the way to daycare and Ron had to drop her off with poop all over her clothes. Um, come to think of it, maybe I won't miss this stage too much, after all. It is nice to move past the constant fear of a blowout at the worst possible time.

That was my Friday. I did eventually get all my errands done, but by the time we got home, all three of us were crabby and tired. Nothing is simple when you have two young children.