Abandoned

A few weeks ago, I was doing my grocery shopping at SuperTarget with the kids. Now, I hate to admit it, but usually I try to get my grocery shopping done in the morning, which means I usually have not yet taken a shower. (Showering doesn’t happen until children, or at least one child, is napping, later in the morning.) So we'll set the stage by explaining that I’m not usually looking my best at Target.

So we’re strolling along and I’m grabbing food and tossing it into the cart while simultaneously trying to read my shopping list and keep the kids from grabbing food, poking each other, dropping anything important such as binkies and teddies, etc., etc. It’s a bit chaotic, to say the least. And Bentley and I usually keep a dialogue running throughout. So this time, he suddenly announces (with a hint of wonder in his voice), “Daddy... run away.” I look around in embarrassment wondering who has overheard this statement and quickly try to correct him, “No, no, Daddy didn’t run away! Daddy just had to go to work! Daddies do that sometimes.” But he must have caught onto the panic in my voice, because after that he continued to insist that Daddy had Run Away. And all I could do was stand there wondering how many people were looking at me and secretly not blaming Craig a bit for running away from this poor unhygienic woman! Maybe it’s time I started showering before the kids woke up…