I should have known….

*sigh*

Today has been ‘one of those’ days & I should have known from the outset & perhaps stayed in bed.

I had plans to drive into town to go to a farmer’s market we’ve never been to – I used to love farmer’s markets in Sydney, North Sydney being a particular favourite, so I had visions of bringing home a luscious bounty of fresh fruit & some veg, maybe a bread stick or two & some stuffed olives…

…so everyone was up early, Punk was dressed & looking spiffy & we were almost off out the door when I realised that The Boy had my eftpos card with him at work; while I was calling him to get him to meet me when I drove down to get it, Punk decided to pee… nothing out of the ordinary there except she neglected to go to the bathroom or partake in any of the other usual procedures.

After cleaning her up & changing her, bundling up Suspence & the seventeen bags of crapola one oohparently requires for a day out with two children I got everything & everyone into the car & headed for The Boy’s work. He wasn’t waiting like he said he would be. I circled. I waited. I got the huffs & got Suspence & Punk out of the bloody car again, only to turn around to The Boy standing there with my card.

Gah. Everyone back in & buckled up. Off we went to the markets!

On the drive in we pass no less than four garage sales – couldn’t stop though as we had markets to get to!

We arrived & parked the car – Suspence was hungry so we stoped off for a snack for him & a (enforced) loo break for The Punk who proceeded to lock the door of her stall & delight in my whiney pleas for her to please come out because there are other people waiting.

Hooray – we made it to the market! There were animals to pat &… not much else. Two veggie stalls that failed to excite, some honey, some olive oil, some salami sitting out on tables in the sun & an understandably large crowd around the coffee van.

Punk was happy to pat some animals but screamed as though I were murdering her when I got her to put some of that water-free sanitary hand wash stuff on her hands… this from the girl that yesterday painted the heater with the conditioner from a pump pack.

All was not lost though – we still had a birthday present for The Boy to find & sushi to eat so off we went. We settled in for Sushi but Suspence didn’t want to stop moving & Punk just didn’t want to stop. She broke the plastic thing that holds the drink menu & spilt a large puddle of soy sauce on the table before her sushi rolls arrived, then insisted on various items from my bento even though we both knew she wouldn’t eat them…

…retail therapy is purported to fix all, so off we went again to find “something”. I did find the perfect “something” but it was very expensive, after counting out all my change & factoring in the money I had on my card I had just enough, with $2 to spare! Things were looking up – I even bought the undeserving Pumpkin child a stamp with the $2 in celebration & thought “the sooner we get home the better”; which made me realise that to get home we would have to pay to get our car out of the car park. To her credit, Punk was quite good about me returning her stamp – although I did have to promise to buy her something better later.

A trip down an escalator (why do people wait until the absolute last minute to move when they are on escalators, leading to a virtual six person pile up behind them…? I fear I am becoming a crowd intolerant country bumpkin…) & up in a lift (where Punk, with her hand covering her eyes so that the people in the lift couldn’t “see” her – like an ostrich with it’s head in the sand – fell over a sleeping Suspence’s pram…) saw us on the wrong floor for our car which I stupidly didn’t notice until walking to the other side of the car park; so back to the lift we went.

One would have thought that would be the end of it – that we could all just get in the car, take a deep breath & head home but nooooooooo….

We were barely out of the car park before Suspence was kicking up a real stink so we headed to a car park as surely he must have be starving to be ranting so – out of his car seat though he wasn’t interested in eating at all & just wanted to laugh at me so again everyone was buckled back in…

Finally they both fell asleep & I was SO GLAD, until I remembered about those garage sales that I would still not be able to pop in to because I had two slumbering children in the car that would be woken up before we made it home over MY. DEAD. BODY.