Adventures at Costco.

A couple of days ago I had to return to my dentist and pick up a mouthguard that had been molded for my teeth. Oh yes, I'm looking fabulous at night with my mouth gear and might even belt out a round of "I feel pretty" if my nighttime look continuous on this glamorous bend. Since Mr. Maricucu works from home two days a week I usually schedule the earliest appointment on one of those days. Unfortunately this last time Mr. Maricucu had a training session in the office, which meant taking all three kids to the appointment. I wasn't too fazed by that though since I figured my appointment would be brief. So we woke up super early, everyone was fed, we even arrived early to the dentist's office. Just as I predicted, my dentist fitted the mouthguard and mentioned she would pack up the guard for me since I had my hands full. I chucked my bag containing the mouthguard into my purse and we were off on a secondary adventure to Costco.

We head off to Costco, riding high on the tails of our successful trip to dentist. Now, Costco, like most big box type stores can be a land mine for parents shopping with their kids this time of year. Not only do you hit the wall of just-baked-cookie smell as you come in but in the beeline to the groceries you must pass the center section that looks like Santa's workshop. The boys, being a bit older now, and with my soon to be four year old anxiously awaiting his birthday, "we'll add it to your wishlist" has become my mantra. We made it through the grocery shopping then took a stroll through the toy section to add yet another half dozen wishlist items. At this point baby has had it. When you're 14 months old, two appointments crammed in the morning is just an eternity and she was letting us know. As she began to ramp up the fuss-fest I rifled through my purse for my wallet and headed to the cash registers thankful that our visit was uneventful.

Oh those blessed cashiers. Two of them chatted up my boys as my momma radar kept an ear on the conversation to make sure it was appropriate and the third cashier who was actually ringing us up cooed at the baby. As she finished up, the ringer-upper exclaimed, "aww a gift for me?" and I see a curious burgundy jewelry box is in the baby's hand then the cashier's hand. My first thought was, "oh my goodness she swiped something off a shelf somewhere" and the horror of almost walking out with a shoplifting baby washed across my face. It's bad enough that I have people wondering if these three kids I tote around all over town are actually mine, being accused of shoplifting is the last thing I need. But then, I saw the DDS logo emblazoned across the front of the box and realized that my mouthguard was now in the hands of the cashier. I quickly explained that the box belonged to me while neglecting to inform her she was touching my mouth gear. Thankfully I was spared seeing said mouth guard flung from the magnetically closing box and landing in someone's lettuce.

Lesson learned - there's no embarrassment in motherhood. It's alllll normal.