The most awfulest shopping trip EVER

Today I decided while Corey was at class to run to Walmart and get some groceries. Nothing big, just some milk and waste a little time doing nothing. It started out just fine, but it was taking a little longer than I anticipated. We got to the toy section, they were offering some sort of coloring contest and candy canes. The   lady asked if Lola would like a candy cane and I said sure, and  I got Greta one too (to be fair ;) and I was thinking how great it was that this candy cane was going to keep Greta preoccupied for like 3 more minutes! I went to the light bulb section to get a ballast. When I got there, it was clear that I had no idea what a ballast was, or where to find it. So I pulled out my phone and called my dad. During my conversation with him about the wonderment of electrical things, Lola picked up a sponge bob nightlight and evidently fell in love with it. A few minutes later I was done with my phone call and ready to keep on. Lola of course begged me for the sponge bob nightlight. I refused on two principles, the first being, that it was $10!!! and the second that I don't really care for her to watch sponge bob anyway. She got mad at me and chucked the nightlight down the aisle. I will tell you that I don't know if the nightlight broke or not, because I turned around and walked away (not my finest hour, or hour and a half as it turned out). Anyway I walked away from her and her screaming, and she eventually followed me. Thank goodness for her fear of abandonment ;). I headed to the next section we needed and couldn't find my item there either. At this point we had spent almost an hour in the store and you could tell the patience of my girls was fading FAST. Greta was kind of whine/moaning and Lola was all over the aisles, touching, moving and rearranging things. I headed for the checkout lanes and was almost in the clear, when Lola's eyes darted to the right and spotted a princess jigsaw puzzle. She bee-lined for it and picked it up. She slowly turned around to face me with her puppy dog eyes and pleading face. I quietly told her "no" and that we had to go pay for our things, because Greta was losing it. So she grabbed the princess puzzle and ran away from me. Now I know this is Walmart and not Bloomingdales, but I refuse to run in front of strangers unless there is a fire. So I sort of just stood there and watched her run away from me... TOWARDS THE EXIT DOORS. I started to panic for just a minute because I realized by the time she actually got to the doors I would be at least 5 seconds behind her and she might make it out into the parking lot. Remembering her abandonment issues though, I held my ground. She stopped about 15 feet from the exit and looked back at me. I shook my head at her and motioned for her to come back to me. She looked down at her sparkly shoes for a moment and then CONTINUED RUNNING. Before I could panic again, she came to her senses and stopped, about 5 feet from the doors. She looked back at me, and I must have given her one of those "looks that could kill", because her eyes became as big as saucers and she came flying back to my side. I knelt down next to the cart and said in a very soft voice, "I know you want the princess puzzle, but that isn't what we came to the store for today. When we get home, you can put it on your Christmas list, OK?" She nodded and we put the puzzle back on the shelf. So I started  moving again, heading for the check out lane and in my head started doing a little happy dance, thinking about how amazing it was that I didn't go running after her like a crazy lady, and I didn't give in and buy the puzzle and I didn't even YELL at her for running away! Seriously, I was mentally patting myself on the back about how well I turned the situation around. Let me stop here for a minute and point out, that as a Mom, whenever you feel like you have it together, or that you have finally figure things out, that is when all H*LL breaks loose! I should really know this by now, but apparently I haven't quite gotten it down. So anyway, I searched for a check out lane that wasn't super long, and found one with only 3 people ahead of me. I parked the cart and started glancing at the tabloid mags in the aisle, trying to ignore an increasingly agitated Greta. All of the sudden Greta decides that she has had enough. She starts SCREAMING at the top of her lungs and throwing herself backward in the cart. I tried to giver her a pacifier or her blanket, but still she kept arching her back and SCREAMING, I mean literally top of her lungs screaming. While I was trying to minimize the scene she was making, I happened to glance over at Lola, who was trying to take the bottom Thomas the Train pillow pet off of a stack that was about 30 high. The stack was wobbling precariously and she was tugging her hardest the at the bottom one. I could just see where this was going. I yelled at her to come back over where we were and amazingly enough - she obeyed. Crises adverted.  I turned my attention back to Greta, who's face was streaming with tears and snot as she continued to scream and throw herself backwards. I literally had to put my foot against the cart wheel to keep the cart from ramming into the cart in front of us from the force of her tantrum. I tried more things to console her, jiggling the cart, playing peek a boo, tickling her neck, but nothing worked. People started giving me those awful pity looks that I just can't stand. I  again happened to turn my head just in time to see Lola pouring Tresseme shampoo into her HAND. UGH. I yelled "LOLA! STOP!" I took the shampoo bottle out of her hand and put it back on the shelf, then wiped her hand on mine and wiped mine on my jeans. Yuck. Out of desperation, I told her to go ride on the quarter machine rides while we continued waiting in line. (I could see the rides perfectly from the line and figured she was safe enough). So now my attention was split between hysterical Greta who managed to give herself welts on her back, through her winter coat, from slamming her back against the cart-  and Lola who was running around the game area like a maniac. Then, Greta got the lovely idea to take off her snow boot and chuck it. I went to retrieve the boot, and off came her sock. Every time I retrieved one thing and tried to put it on her, another item would come sailing past my head. Finally I stopped trying to shove her boots on and put them in the cart. (A barefoot baby in a winter coat, now I REALLY fit in at Walmart) She continued screaming and arching her back, so I decided maybe I should try to take her out of the cart and hold her. Instead of throwing her weight backwards into the cart, she threw it forward into my face. Nice. It wasn't long before I acquired a fat lip, so I decided to try to put her in the back of the cart, where she had some more room. (I think we had spent about 20 minutes in line, the whole time Greta was absolutely inconsolable.) She was momentarily calmed when I set her down, but the minute she tried to walk in bare feet on the bottom of the wire cart, she started screaming again. I finally got to put my groceries on the belt at this time. I continued trying to calm Greta, using every single trick I knew, but nothing worked. I actually at this point considered that maybe she was allergic to something in the Candy Cane and was physically ill. I honestly have never seen her so upset in all my life. Even when she was a tiny baby, she never cried like that. I endured another 10 minutes of insanity, when it was finally time for me to pay. The cashier could have charged me like triple what I owed, because I was totally not paying attention. I signed that receipt and took off as fast as I could. I wanted to LEAVE!. Unfortunately when I got to where Lola was playing, she reminded me that I had promised she could have Subway for lunch.I knew that if I tried to tell her that we needed to leave because of Greta, that I would probably end up with 2 hysterical children instead of one. I agreed and we headed for Subway. The next 10 minutes is sort of a blur, so I am going to kind of recap it using fragmented sentences. I might have had a rage black out or something.

Lola whining. Me shaking my head. Greta screaming. Lola bouncing. Me ordering. Greta pulling my hair. Lola hiding. Greta pinching. Me signing the receipt. Lola whining. Greta screaming. (sigh)

I put Greta back in the cart, and went to get a soda thinking the caffeine might help with my mounting tension headache. I filled the soda and went back to Greta who was continuing to freak out. She saw Lola with a juice box and started screaming JUICE JUICE!! So I got her a juice box from the fridge and went to give her the straw. In one quick swipe, she had the juice box in her hand and squirted it all over herself, me and everything in the cart. I grabbed the juice box back and set it on the table.I gave up and set my soda in the cart and went to try to get Lola in her coat. A friend came into Subway and pointed out that my soda had spilled in my cart and all over the floor. yay. I ran back behind the counter and grabbed a mop, hauled it into the front area to clean up the spill. (Side note: Don and Lori, if you would like some cheap entertainment, rewind the cameras back to about 12:13pm and watch me lose my sanity, I bet it was real entertaining. Oh, and sorry about hitting the ceiling with the mop handle). After the spill, I pretty much threw the kids in the cart and hightailed it out of there into the freezing cold. It wasn't until I got to the car that I realize Greta still didn't have any shoes or socks on. Nice.

Honestly probably the worst 45 minutes EVER. Greta was fine once I got her into the car. She stopped screaming and throwing herself everywhere and just sort of sniffled all the way home. I still am unsure what caused her to get so upset, but I will for sure be avoiding ALL candy canes in the future.