All by myself

I almost never take both boys out of the house by myself.  There have been a few times I’ve ventured out with the boys without my husband.  A trip to the pumpkin farm with friends when Xander was just 2 or 3 weeks old, some playdates, a trip the the Science Center with a friend.  You see the trend, right?  There has always been at least one other adult around when I take the boys out without my husband.  There are a couple reasons for this.  One being that we almost always do our errands as a family. Or I’ll just take Jack with me for special “Mommy and Jack time”.  And let’s not forget the most important reason: I’ve been scared out of my mind.

Our kids are generally well behaved.  Sure each of them has their moments, but in public, basically pretty good.  So why have I been so scared?  Other than the general worries of one of them acting up, I’ve been worried about how to handle Jack.  I don’t baby-wear and I don’t have a double stroller.  This means that X would be in the stroller and Jack would have to walk and hold my hand.  I’ve had visions of him just running away from me (which he has NEVER done) and me basically losing him.  Irrational? Maybe.

Today, I had some errands that I really needed to get done.  My husband had to go to work for a few hours, so if I was going to get my errands done, I had to take the boys out alone. ALL.BY.MYSELF.  You know what? It went well.  Really well.  I dare say that I actually had a good time.

Before we left, I told Jack that he would have to hold my hand the whole time or we would go right to the car and go home.  He was an angel the entire time.  If I let go of his hand (to pay or to pick something up) he would immediately say “Mommy we *have to* hold hands.”  He was so good that I surprised him with a visit to the play area at the mall.  He had a great time and I was so proud of him for being such a good little man for me.  And of course Xander was a good tiny man too.  He was asleep part of the time. And once he woke up, he just hung out in his stroller and took in the surroundings.

They were so good, I think we may actually venture out for more outings by ourselves in the near future.

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