Proud Moment #4

Today I made it to the grocery store with all 5. We utilized two carts. Inside each cart was a baby in a carseat. Titus rode in the sitting part of the boy cart that I pushed. Emma pushed Gwen & Addie kept close watch over Emma's cart steering abilities.

The trip was great. Even the checkout part was free of crying. Once we got in the car, I immediately let out a big "HooRah!" for the Willmers and told them how proud of us I was.

Addie said, "We are sooo brave!"
Emma chimed in, "Like the knights of the Round Table."
We drove away with visions of onward & upward, eager to accomplish our next "proud moment." That is, until we got to the first stop sign. Emma shouts, "Titus isn't wearing his seatbelt!" Oh dear. Forgot about that part. I look in the rearview mirror and there is Titus smiling a smile of freedom. I pull over as quickly as possible. As I get back in the car I tell Emma thank you. Addie throws in the timely comment, "We could've gotten put in jail for that one." We went from being the knights of the Round Table to jailbirds all in 30 seconds.


aka The smile of freedom (plus a PB&J sandwich, blackberries, & hummus).


~Post Edit~
Okay so it has been a day since the seat belt incident. I didn't post it right away due to the not-proud-mom-moment guilt & for fear that the policemen would hunt me down for jail. However, hope was restored this morning, when I shared my story in front of my mom's group and more than half of them have made similar faux paus, must be the lack of sleep, dry Cheerios for breakfast, minimmal showering, and the smell of fermented sippy cups in our cars that's causing the forgetfulness/commraderie.

So, today when Addie got in the car after school, I guess seeing Titus in his carseat reminded her about our dreaded seat belt incident, she commented non-chalantly, "I told my class we almost got thrown in jail for not having Titus wear a seatbelt." Hmm, now my not-proud-mom-moment is Daily News for kindergarten Room #8...fodder for a classroom of 5 year-olds!!

I'm all for class participation, but really let's raise your hand when we want to share what 2 + 3 equals...or better yet, at least make our incident into a word problem. There are 6 people in a dazzling silver minivan. 5 of them are wearing their seatbelts. How many people in the minivan are not? :) All Addie's teacher could say in response to her "Daily News" was, "That's terrible, Addie." Yep, not longer one of the Knights of the Round Table.

I am proud to say, I have taken new joy in buckling my little man into his seat. Life is good!

FYI: I plan on numbering my proud moments so long as I can keep track & as long as they out-number my not-so-proud moments. Don't worry that shouldn't be too long b/c I have already lost track of how old the twins are.