All was going well - and by well I mean as well as can be expected when shopping with a couple of two-year-olds. Belly inspected every item on a hanger within her reach before discarding it and the Bug did all of her circus tricks as she dangled from the clothing racks. I feverishly perused everything that was size 2T, 3T and 4T as I caught flying hangers and tried to convince my kid that these were not monkey bars. The cool thing about it being the presale was that everyone else shopping knew exactly what the twin thing was about and nobody batted an eyelash. No one walked up and asked me to control my kids. No one looked at me like, "Ugh. I hate kids." No one seemed to really care. It was beautiful.

Then we got in line. Oh lord - the line. We stood for 25 minutes before it was our turn. About 5 minutes into that wait, Belly decided that she wanted to leave and proceeded to go from whining about it to full-blown hysterical screaming, complete with stomping, hitting me, spinning until she fell, the works. Buggy stood there quietly inspecting the twins and triplets in line behind us. Every mom in the place took turns either smiling at me or walking past and patting my shoulder. That part was nice, but it did nothing to stop my wailing child. We paid for our goods and walked out. Belly instantly stopped crying... for 45 seconds when she announced that she needed to be carried the block to the truck. She flipped her tantrum switch again and lost her shit before she even completed her declaration. Fine. I half carried, half dragged her and the Bug and all our stuff to the truck; got them in their car seats; doled out snacks; and put my head on the steering wheel for a couple deep breaths. Belly wanted to hold my hand. Fine. I reached back and held her hand. She was calm. Again - that lasted about 45 seconds until she started screaming, "DRIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!" Me, being the always patient mother, yelled back, "ENOUGH! EAT YOUR SNACK AND STOP THE SCREAMING!" Yeah. I'm awesome like that.

We came home and immediately went up for nap. Belly was exhausted from all of her antics, crashing pretty quickly. Buggy would not go to sleep. Would. Not. So I told her to read quietly until Belly woke up and I'd come get them when the music ended. She seemed fine with that plan.

After nap, we had lunch and the girls wanted to watch Sesame Street. Down to the family room we went to watch some quality television together. The Bug was immediately sucked in. Belly just wanted to... I don't know... accost me? She wanted to snuggle but not just snuggle - stroke my hair, bury her face in my neck, try to pick a mole off my cheek, insist on touching my bra, say "MOM" four thousand times in a row. I. Just. Needed. A. Little. Space. Finally Sesame Street ended and the Bug came out of her daze to instantly start screaming, "MORE ELMO! MORE ELMO! MORE ELMO!" Seriously. Meltdown from child #2. She went from zero to sixty in about .3 seconds flat. She started throwing herself around the family room as she hit her tantrum stride. Belly wasn't phased and kept saying "MOM" as she tried to continue some heavy petting. I didn't have it in me to deal with it all so I said that we could watch just the Elmo's World segment again. Buggy was happy with that. I had bought myself only twenty more minutes, though, because the tantrum continued as soon as Elmo was gone again. I separated Belly from my body and made her walk upstairs as I tucked the shrieking Bug under my arm. Once in the kitchen, both girls started crying that they neeeeeeeeeded me to pick them up; they neeeeeeeeeded me to hold them. I don't know, friends. I hit my breaking point. I yelled. I informed everyone that Mommy needed space and they all should go in the other room. I cried. It was ugly.

Dude came downstairs to go to the bank at this point. He clearly did a quick assessment of the situation and took Belly with him. Thank god. Buggy and I made popcorn and she ate it quietly while I became human again. By the time Dude got home, I was fully functioning and we all went out for dinner.

A good friend of mine recently said that it's the marathon of parenting that's so hard - the day in, the day out, the constant constant everything. I couldn't agree more. I can handle tantrums in a vacuum. I can handle the physically needing me every minute in a vacuum. Some days I think it's really too bad I don't live in a vacuum.

Then earlier today I was driving home from a few hours at the mall by myself when I passed Dude and the girls on the street. We stopped, rolled down our windows and chatted a moment before I headed home and they went about their errands. Those girls looked so cute and small in their car seats; so innocent. I wanted to cover them with kisses.

Dang this mothering thing is a trip.