Walmart (and back) or bust!!!

Despite the title, I agree with my sister about Walmart. Especially the one where I'm at. WAY overloaded. In any case, here is my story...

I have started walking with a friend in my ward around the neighborhood and talking, and getting exercise. Today she calls me up and asks if I want to walk to Walmart with her. I hesitate, thinking about it. I remembered that to have the dinner we have scheduled for today, I do need to go to the store, and I have been trying to loose weight.... hmmm I wondered... could I really make it to Walmart and back with a 2 year old? We headed off.

For those of you who know me, my house is on a hill. Walmart isn't considerably far away, but enough that you need to really think before you take off walking to it. We left around 10:30ish. We got home (finally!!!!) around 1:30ish stopping at another store while we were down there. My legs are aching, but I have a little sense of exhilaration. I DID IT!!! I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but I'm home, and made it. Yay!!! There were a few exciting happenings during the trek, yes, it WAS a trek, and I'll expound on those now.

First "thrill": my friend had two kids with her. A three year old and a hmmm maybe 18-20 month old. When we got to Walmart, I felt kind of silly walking around with a stroller rather then a cart, but no one looked at us particularly funny, which I'm grateful for. I checked out, and met my friend near the bathroom because of a diaper change. While I waited for her, I realized that I don't have a diaper... thankfully it wasn't needed. The excitement comes after she comes out. She hadn't checked out yet, and she needed to find something in the gardening section and get her glasses looked at. So I sat there with a three year old, Bug (2), and a 20 month old (or how ever old he is...). It started out fine, then her younger one started whining and wanting to go find his mommy, and her 3 year old "wants to go look at something". I had her youngest in my arms, and she was trying to take off. Of course, once she started walking around, Bug did too. It is just a thing kids do, copy each other particularly if they shouldn't be doing it. Don't ask me why, and if you find a solution... let me know. :) She finally came back, and then needed to gather up her stuff to check out. She threatened her older child to not give her the goldfish crackers back unless she stayed in the stroller. She left to check out and thankfully, it wasn't as hectic.

Second "thrill": This one only really makes sense if you know the particular Walmart I'm talking about. But I'll try to explain it anyway. There is a back way to pull in to the Walmart, and a lot of people take it. We needed to cross, but the problem was that there was a turn in the road (where we were trying to cross) it is pretty narrow for even two cars, and there was a bunch of who knows what blocking our way so we couldn't see if there was a car coming. We could see behind us with that line of traffic, but the other one, we kind of had to guess, but yet stay back far enough so cars could see us before they hit us, and after they made the turn. Scary... we made it out fine though :)

Third "thrill": Hiking back up the hill is thrill enough. We probably had to stop to rest 3 or 4 times once the slope got pretty steep. And every time we stopped, my friends kids wanted to get out. Thankfully for both of us, Bug seemed pretty well behaved the whole time. Near the top (we could see the level ground again, but were still climbing) we were stopped again, and her youngest managed to get out. At this point, her 3 year old was already out and walking. We were hoping that she would get tired and want to get in, but she didn't. I think she had given up by now keeping them in, but when her youngest started walking toward the road, she jumped for him, letting go of the stroller. It started to roll down-hill, and I went for it. I grabbed it, then turned around to get mine. I was ahead of her stroller, so I was able to get both. Thankfully none of her kids were in at the time, and thankfully I could grab it in time. I wasn't about to go back down and up again. After that she forced them back in the stroller and we went on our way. Right at the top of the hill was our apartments. Whew... we won't be doing that again for at least a week. :)