Places I’d rather not take my kids:

• The grocery store:  They insist on riding in the cart with a truck cab in front, which is very difficult to steer, and greatly decreases the amount of room in the cart for our groceries.  And now they’re getting bigger so they don’t fit as well in there together.
• The mall:  At each mall near us, there is a Barnes & Noble, which means there is a train table in the kids book area.  They automatically assume they’ll be able to play there during our trip.  If not there, they want to play on the “floor game” at Brookfield Square, which is a projector-type thing shining on the floor that responds to your shadow.  And if not there, they want to ride one of the motorized toys at Brookfield Square, even if I don’t put money in it.  Never mind that, at some time during the approximately 2 hours we have to run errands at the mall before lunch, maybe I’d like to get something productive done!  Our last three trips to the mall have ended with the boys throwing fits, me wanting to leave them in the mall and fighting back tears as we make our way to the car, trying to ignore the people staring.  Oh woe is me!
• The pharmacy:  It seems that almost every time we go to the doctor for one of the kids, we have to make a stop at the pharmacy on the way out.  Don’t get me wrong-I love the convenience.  But it is very hard to keep the boys from touching every box of cough syrup, band-aids, tampons, pregnancy tests, lotion, and nasal spray.  And at our Quad pharmacy, they seem to always have some type of truck or car that the boys want.
• The post office:  A lot of times, we’re able to mail a package using the self-serve postage machine out front.  But sometimes I need more help, or I want some fun stamps (not the lame Liberty Bell or flag stamps).  The boys are often sitting on the floor (GROSS!), touching/grabbing things that are hanging on the wall, or bumping into the people standing around us.
• Target:  I love me my Target!  But with the boys, they insist on seeing the toys, and we spend several minutes slowly making our way down the Matchbox/Hot Wheels aisle so they can check out all the same trucks and cars we’ve seen a hundred times before.  After we see their things, they start whining about leaving.  Never mind that I may have some things to take care of while we’re there!

That’s it for now.  I’m sure there are a million places that I’m forgetting.  These are just some of the ones that are fresher in my mind.  <Sigh!>