I had a rare morning this week where Chloe was with a babysitter and I had some Lizzy-time to run several thousand errands that had been stock-piling in my brain causing things to short-circuit and ultimately blow a fuse which completely frayed my hair at the ends.

Unless you have tried to take  a toddler to the grocery store in addition to making one other stop, you have no idea how stressful it can be, how many raisin bribes you will need to make, how many trips to a dirty public restroom will be required, how many spare pants you will need to bring when the dirty bathroom trip takes twelve seconds longer to get to than you thought you had timed perfectly, how much patience you will need to have if you have to pump gas and you forgot your “funny” hat to play pop-goes-the-weasel which is the only allowable way to pass the time while you are outside of the vehicle and your two year old is still strapped into her five point harness desperate for entertainment 100% of the time by either you or a more animated, younger, healthier version of–you.

So Chloe went to the babysitter while I took Hanna to the hospital and Greg pretended to be on conference calls while Y&R was obviously playing in the background and the phone startled him awake.

I made it to the grocery store, to the uniform place where I was having something embroidered and the adrenalin rush was palpable. I then headed to the bakery, then a second bakery (one for sweets, one for savouries) then to the mall. Why the mall, I thought I hated the mall? Wait, I think I hate the mall when the kids are with me. When I’m on my own, I can actually stop and let someone spritz me with the fragrance of their choosing without swinging my arms in an erratic windmill motion so I can just hurry past and get to my raisins!

I pulled into a shop advertising “Kuerig flavours, 100’s to choose from.” I’m listening.

You can never just pull into an unplanned stop on a whim when you have a toddler with you. These trips take planning, sometimes weeks in the making.

I went to a toy store to look for Christmas gifts and kept visiting the train set wondering where Chloe had wandered off to. Wait, she wasn’t with me. Choo-choo, I’m out of here.

I actually picked up one of those display bottles in front of a hair salon and took the time to read the label. All this time and now I know what hair serum really does.

It could save lives.