all grown up!!

i went grocery shopping (the most dreaded chore!!!) the other day and somehow the desperation to have actual food and supplies in the house drove me to do something completely crazy - take all four kids to the store without brent. this is not something that i am unable to do by myself, i just selfishly like to have brent there to enjoy the excitement and thrill of watching my children run up and down the isles waving their arms in the air like they have never tasted freedom before and touch every possible thing in the entire store or beg for every food on the banned list.

we made it through sams club ok without any tantrums (from them) or meltdowns (from me) and then proceeded to target where i promised them that if they would be good they could wander to the $1 section (we affectionately call this section of target the pit of despair, as we never make it out of there without some major fit, usually from me) and pick out a toy or some other useless object that is totally not needed or will not stay together for the entire ride home. they did pretty good until we got to the soap and shaving cream isle and as i was picking out some new razors with which to torture my legs with i could hear hannah giggling as christian was explaining something to her. i turned to see what they were doing and they were all smelling the deodorants. christian then proceeded to tell me that it was time for him to be a grown up and start sporting some good smelling stuff for his "pits." i reminded him that he was 4, but he said that he has noticed some new odors emanating from the general area of his underarms and insisted that it was time to ride with the big boys and get his own deodorant. he of course wanted to get the biggest canister that they had in stock, but i found the travel section just a row over and he settled on a travel size Axe brand. as he smelled it, hannah was teasing him that he just wanted to smell nice for the ladies and he turned four shades of purple and told her that that was supposed to be a secret. we finally made it out of the store with his prized possession in hand and when he got in the car he quickly pulled up his shirt, stating at the same time that he was a professional because he had watched daddy do this many times, he swiped a few times under each pit and then put his nose right down there, took a big whiff and stated "boy, do i smell good!!" the look on his face was priceless. he was so proud of himself. i told him he only needed to do this once a day, but let me just say that we know when he is near because we can smell his big boy goodness all over the house because once is just not enough for him!!!