Costco Trip

I'm not sure why I encourage the whole family to take a Costco trip with me. I'm exhausted at the end of a normal trip to Costco, let alone with three cranky children who just want a churro at the end and a husband who is in awe of the "Costco-amazingness." Today we decided to go after church. I had like 6 things on my list, which you know means we are at least buying 10 and spending well over 100 dollars. Why oh why is toilet paper 18 dollars? Good grief!
Jack is always causing mischief and trying to run through the whole store. He thinks the cart might eat him and so he has refused to sit in carts anymore. (Neither of the other two ever went through a stage like this - in fact they would jump at the chance to still sit in the cart!)
Our Costco has a "dairy cooler" and I guess it makes a loud rushing air sound when you walk it. Of course, that sent Sensitive-ear-boy-Jack off on his first screaming escapade of the day. The cooler was going to "get him."
We then proceed to buy the golden toilet paper and move our way to the cooler sections. Mason who is in la-la land for most of the trip is running into people, getting hit by their carts and has already caused me to run his foot over twice. As if its not hard enough to push the thousand pound cart, worry about Jack being eaten by the dairy cooler, then I have to continually tell Mason to "watch out, get out of the way, look where your going, etc."
Our last stop is the snack aisle, where the asking begins: "Can I have these fruit snacks?" "Ohhhh - I have to have these Sponge Bob cookies." I just keep walking trying to ignore the comments and get into line. I pay for the cart full of groceries but not before I get cash out so we can brave eating lunch at the Costco food court.
We like to eat lunch there cause we can all eat, with dessert, for under 14 dollars, but the experience is always the same.... Me bringing the food to the table, while Allen gets a table and mans the kids. I then fill the drinks and take anyone to the potty that may need to go. When I return, Allen is usually cutting up the food, while I take the hot dogs for their fixings. I finally return to sit down and try to enjoy my extremely high calorie lunch. The plan is for the three kids to share one drink, after all there are free refills. Today this caused an uproar among the natives. Maybe it was because we came from church where they only drank dixie cup sized water with their snack (my kids are drinkers). But sharing was not in the cards today. Everyone devoured their pizzas and hot dogs while yelling back to each other that they were so thirsty and it was their turn to drink.
We ran into a family from church, which somehow sent my kids into overdrive and the loud talking and hugging began. They have three kids too, so between the 2 of us, we tried to eat lunch with 6 kids all 5 and under. We survived and headed out with our heavy cart.
The kids take turns holding the receipt for the door lady to make a pretty smiley face on it as she checks to make sure we did not steal anything. Today was Avery's turn, which made her extremelly happy and thankfully the boys didn't seem to care.
You would think a Costco trip woud end there.... but the story continues as we load the car in the parking lot, unload the car in the driveway and everyone takes something in the house where things are put away.
Whew.... now the house is quiet and there are two sleeping children and one who is reading quietly. A Costco trip well accomplished today!