Exaltation of the Cross

This morning we went grocery shopping at the new Super Wal-Mart one hundred feet over the border into South Carolina (aka Land of Lower Taxes). Afterward I treated the kids to lunch at the Subway sandwich shop. It was quite a comedy of errors, yet completely typical of going anywhere with children. I parked our paid-for groceries outside the sandwich shop and trusted they wouldn't be stolen. Then I ordered lunches while holding heavy Mary and keeping John from running too wildly in circles around my skirt. At the register, Mary tells me she has to go potty, but that she is "holding it tight!" I asked the sandwich-maker if she would watch our lunch on the table and our cart outside the shop while I took the kids to the restroom, and she said she would. But then Mary informed me (after telling me three times that she had to go) that she did not have to use the potty. So, I got us settled at the table, washed our hands with alcohol gel, and then John told me had to go potty. I started to march us out again when he told me no, he didn't have to go. So I set us back down again and he says he does have to use the bathroom, and he wonders why I had ever been confused. So we marched to the nearest restroom (which was outside the restaurant, in the store proper).

Now, it's not the easiest thing in the world to take one toddler and one preschooler to a public bathroom (and my friends with many more kids know so much more than I!). Just last week a friend of who just adopted a one-year-old was asking me how on earth to hold him and wash his hands in a public restroom. And that might seem like a ridiculous question except that I clearly remember asking the same question of one of my friends. It took me two kids and probably two and a half years of parenting to figure out how to manage kids in a public restroom!

Today was the Feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross, so we did a craft.

John's cross

Mary's cross

Later Daddy led the children around the house in procession with crosses (by which time Mary had lost her dress).

Then we got to eat dessert of store-bought angel food cake, whipped cream, and strawberries! (I think you'll be noticing Mary's grimace smile more and more, just as John has been adopting a more normal smile for photos!)