What comes around ...

I am a planner. This revelation may come as a surprise to my parents who heard "do I look worried?" throughout my younger years every time they thought I should have a plan when I was certain it would all just work out. Apparently their persistence (i.e. nagging) worked, as somewhere in my 20s I lost that attitude and went over to the dark side with both feet. One time in the last 10 years I have not had a hotel reservation in advance, and it cost me $279 in Deadwood, South Dakota. Lesson learned.

Being a planner kind of flies in the face of being a new mom. Over the course of the last 5 weeks, we have taken Ryder out in public for essential visits only. When we have anywhere to go that does not require him to be there, we stay in the car. We go through the drive through and get lunch and eat in the car. One of us stays with him in the car while the other runs into Walmart. We turned down an invite to Chuck-E-Cheese because it is germ infested. Yes, we are those parents.

Yesterday we decided to branch out and have a normal day of running errands WITH THE BABY. I had an itinerary all planned out. The diaper bag was weighed down with so much stuff that I would have had to pay extra if I wanted to declare it as checked luggage. We were going to eat and then to Walmart. I fretted all morning about how Ryder would do out in public.

Most parents capture their babies first smile, first bath, first tooth ... this is Ryder's first visit to a fast food establishment. It will be framed and documented in his baby book. Don't judge us.

Having successfully fed our faces, we headed to Walmart. I had thought about the logistics of how the car seat would go in the shopping cart. I envisioned needing 2 carts - one for baby and one for groceries. I had spent minutes of my life thinking about this. I have issues.

As Trent was attempting to put the car seat in the shopping cart (sideways!) a lovely woman stopped us and showed him the correct way to position it. Who knew? Thank you nice lady. No need for the New Parents tattoos, I think it was obvious.

And a first visit to Walmart photo? Of course we have one. Don't think I didn't get some strange looks when I took this one.

The only drama came when it was time to take the car seat OUT of the shopping cart. Trent pulled up on the seat and looked at me with panic in his eyes. The seat was attached to the cart. Walmart wanted to keep our baby! He pulled and tugged and it did not come free. Upon further examination, there are little hooks that go around the shopping car from the car seat that hold it into place. Seems like that would have been helpful information, kind stranger.

So much for all my planning. I never even opened the diaper bag. Ryder was asleep before we left our housing addition, and he was still sleeping 20 minutes after we returned home. If he could talk, I just know he would have said "did I look worried?".