Well, we’re chancing it. We are taking our first shopping trip as a family. As you know from my post office experience last week, it’s a rather large event to get out of the house at all, much less accomplish anything. And we have a nearly unattainable goal: to get to Sam’s Club to stock up on the cheapest prices in town for formula, diapers, and yummy food for mommy and daddy, all within one segment while not missing naps or meals on either side of the trip.

I have tried to mentally prepare Matt for the experience… I rarely take the babies shopping with me and he never has. He has obviously been in public with them before but hasn’t yet experienced the celebrity status of strangers seeing your cute and smiling twins and completely preventing you from accomplishing anything at the store because you need to pull over multiple times and answer some staple questions (How old are they? 7.5 months; Do you watch John and Kate plus Eight? no, we do not; Are they aware of each other? very; So, is it crazy having twins? Sure, but they are alot of fun! and so on). I have to say, I get a kick out of the celebrity status they have because we think they are pretty great so it’s fun to see that they have that effect on so many others. In fact, one of my parenting books geared directly toward parents of twins suggested that if I’m having a really crappy day, just try to get out in public somewhere so that I can experience the celebrity status for an instant pick-me-up. But we’re not going to Sam’s for a pick-me-up, so I’m interested to see how Matt deals with this 🙂

We tried several options this morning for how to best work this. Sling one baby, carry the other (works), baby backpacks (works), using the twin cart at Sam’s (doesn’t work, they are not yet solid sitters for that much time and will bonk their faces on the handlebar), sling + baby backpack (works). We decided that the stroller is the best option and we’ll bring the sling as a backup in case one of them gets antsy because if we each wear one baby, neither of us can lift the cases of formula etc. into our cart. Here’s a picture (I made Matt and I’s matching jammies pants back when we were dating and life was carefree and full of free time):

To prepare for certain stress later today, we cuddled this morning to have peaceful time. We are exhausted because the babies woke up ridiculously early and they can’t blame an earthquake this time! (I blame the sun for coming up sooner and sooner). Matt fed them early this morning, they went straight back to bed and so did we, then we hung out in our room before breakfast. In the third picture, Rissa is making the face she uses when she wants something from Zach. When she was tiny, she made this face right before trying to latch onto his head or right before she managed to steal or share his pacie. I’m thrilled to know she still makes that face! This time, she wants to peel that green dinosaur right off his shirt, and she managed to get a good handful of it before Zach rolled away!

If we survive, I’ll let you know how it goes!