Taking My Children to Target Was My Mt. Everest

Overcoming Parenting Fears One Outing at a Time...

Merry almost Christmas! And check those school calendars…As a present to myself, I booked a haircut on Friday — only to realize it’s the first day of Holiday Break and there is no school. I told my kids they’ll be coming with me and my son said “only if you get a mullet,” so we’ll see how that goes!

We have a fun episode out this week with comedian Gina Brillon. And next week, dear listeners/readers, a gift for you - a short episode for the kids. Yes, over 15 minutes of our podcast that is safe-for-kid-ears to listen to over the holiday break. Enjoy!

This week, we have writer Lucy Huber sharing her experiencefirst big solo parent outing since having her second child.

---

A few weeks ago I took my nine month old and my 3 year old to Target by myself. Maybe that doesn’t seem notable to you reading this. Maybe you aren’t a parent, so you, like me before I had children, just kind of assumed parents take their kids out in public by themselves all the time no problem. Or maybe you are a parent but you have low levels of anxiety and the thought of pushing a baby in a stroller while chasing a 3 year old through Target while he sings “RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER” (in all caps because that is the volume at which he sang it) while pumping an unpurchased and breakable reindeer statue in the air doesn’t seem scary to you. Or maybe you are a parent but you have the type of kids who will sit in the seat of a cart they make to contain children/don’t sing RUDOLPH THE REDNOSED REINDEER and run laps through Target like it’s an American Ninja Warrior obstacle course. Or maybe you are like me and understand why me taking my two children to Target alone was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life

.

I’m going to admit something here. I have had two children for 10 months now and until last month I could count on one hand the number of times I’d taken them somewhere without my husband or mom. And every single one of those times, I was meeting up with a friend, someone who I could hand the baby to when things started to go downhill. Someone who could hold the baby while I tried to convince my 3 year old to pee in a portapotty on a pumpkin farm, you understand. 

But then the baby learned to crawl which is an extremely complicating factor with babies. For a long time they are immobile, a lump of baby that you can place on a blanket and they will stay there like Christmas coal. But then they learn that they don’t have to sit there motionless playing with whatever thing you handed them. They can move their legs and arms and find new, more dangerous things you didn’t hand them. 

For us, once the baby started to crawl it set off some huge problems in our family. The 3 year old is not a fan of the baby generally (as he’s told me on multiple occasions “I need a lot of attention and I don’t think the baby should get any.” Fair point.) but once she started to be able to move and touch his things, true chaos ensued. Every time I took care of both kids alone, it just devolved into me switching off holding each of them as they bawled because the baby wanted to touch Toby the tram Engine, which, obviously, is illegal. 

So, it became clear, I needed a new hangout spot. Our house, where the toys live, was no longer an option. But I was terrified. What if the toddler ran away and I couldn't chase him fast enough with the baby? What if they both cried at the same time? What if...I don’t know...I put the baby down and then forgot about her and left her in the tampon aisle and drove home by accident? A lot of things could happen.

But I took them to Target. I piled both of them in the car, did the endless buckling and unbuckling of car seats, and, shaking, took them both, by myself, into the store. 

I did it. I did it. We had a good time, even. We made it home, having bought $100 dollars worth of Christmas decorations because I was too terrified to navigate through Target with both kids and parent well enough to explain to the 3 year old why we can’t buy every single pick up truck themed Christmas decoration the store offered, but I did it. And it didn’t even go that badly, so the next day I tried to do it again! I took both of them to the library. Ambitious? Yes. A disaster? Also yes. 

This time nothing went as planned. The baby kept crawling away to knock books off the shelf while the three year old demanded I read to him while sitting at a desk instead of on the floor. Then the three year old wanted to be the one to scan the books we were checking out but was doing such a bad job the librarian came over to help the obviously struggling toddler and the frazzled mother whose baby was crawling towards the stairs and he screamed I CAN DO IT in the librarian’s face. At one point I had to change a diaper and the three year old absolutely refused to come with us into the bathroom. So, beaten down, my judgment clouded, I agreed he could sit on a bench outside the bathroom and read while I changed the diaper. Thirty five seconds and the fastest diaper change ever later, I exited the bathroom to find a pile of books on the bench and no three year old. Panicked, I screamed his name and a librarian rushed to help. We searched and searched until we heard him giggling underneath the stairs, hiding. I am still recovering from that one. 

This is all to say that taking care of two children on my own is so much harder than I thought it would be. There is a reason turtle mothers just lay their eggs in a hole and book it for the ocean. But also, I’m watching myself learn how to be a parent in real time. It’s hard, yes, it’s terrifying, still, but I won’t give up. 

I remember the first time I took my newborn baby out of the house with my toddler, she was three weeks old. My mom and I took them both to Petco and before we even left the car, I was crying. “I can’t do this,” I said. My mom held my hand. “You can,” she said. “One day you will need something from Trader Joe’s and you’ll run in with them both and realize you took them with you without even thinking about it. It just takes time.” 

That hasn’t happened yet, but I think we are getting closer.