"I just need my Icee!"

Wednesdays are so much fun for me.

This Wednesday I decided to brave the world of three kids five and under. Amber was planning on going to vote while I had the girls, and the thought of her trying to corral Jared while voting (and waiting in line - our county so far has the highest voter turn out in the state of Texas!) made me scared for her sanity.

On top of the fact that it was really getting to me how sad he was when he didn't get to join our fun...

So, we loaded up and headed out.

In an attempt to "convince" Jadyn that it was okay to not pick a special place to get drinks after Little Gym (anticipating a very tired little boy who is normally sleeping at that time) I let her pick where we were going to stop for lunch.

Her original choice- Chipotle- sounded so much like Chick-fil-a amidst the other noises in the car that I stared heading that way. Once I realized what she was saying was in fact Chipotle, I told her we can't pick a place that doesn't have a drive thru.

I listed off four or five choices and she picked.

We took our lunch to a near by park (which happened to be deserted!!! Thank you Lord!) and had lots of fun.

We even managed to avoid my worst nightmare (the need of a potty break, where there were no visible bathrooms....)!

There were no tears loading up the car to head to the Little Gym, and we even made it in enough time to go potty before class started.

As we walked to the car after class Jadyn says, "I am going to pick Sam's."

I thought long and hard about how to persuade her that she already got to pick.

Nothing came to me.

You see, she's not even four yet and she has been waiting two weeks to have another turn to pick her place. I knew how patient she had been, how much it meant to her, and how I had told her last week that it was her turn today.

But I knew it would be massive chaos to unload all three kids to go into Sam's to get Icee's.

My heart couldn't taking breaking her precious little heart. I drove to Sam's and tried to devise a plan for conquering this last stop.

Let's just say that we created such a scene in the virtually empty parking lot that a stanger asked if I needed help.

I don't know what in the world could have given her that idea?!? Certainly not the giant one year old wrestling me to prevent his eventual buckling into a shopping cart, or the five year old hugging me with tears streaming down her face because I scared her, or the three year old still standing in the car refusing to get out of the door her brother used.

All of this for an Icee?

We did "eventually" make it in to Sam's.

In fact, we made it in to Sam's with no crying. (We were in the parking lot for a LONG time!)

We got our Icee's.

We even made it back to the car without too much drama.

We were all buckled in, guzzling Icee's, when I looked in the rear view mirror at those three precious-and extremely tired-faces.

"You guys look tired."

Alaina pipes up, "Yeah, I am going to need a LONG quiet time today."

"Jared is going to need a long nap today too," I added.

Jadyn quickly added, "I just need my Icee."


Those five words made every second of the drama worth while.