A Little Taste of Having A Car

When we were on KI we had a car that we had rented so that we could see the island. It was the first time we have had a car since we got here several weeks ago.

The kids thought those 4 days were bliss, and I was hoping we would get to buy groceries before we dropped it back off at the rental company, but no dice. Early the morning after we got back, Garrett returned it on his way to work.

Today we went to buy groceries and even though we were armed with an umbrella stroller and a little hand held wheeling grocery bin the boys were very mad we had to walk. They demanded to know WHERE the car had gone. It was very hot and overwhelming to them to have to walk all the way there. Enoch whined and complained about pulling the little grocery bin even though it was empty and he would periodically drop it on the ground and walk off and leave it promising he wouldn't pull it another step. Then after he started pulling it again he would purposely walk 100 meters behind us just so that we had to wait for him every time we needed to cross a street. He was being as big a pain in the neck as he could possibly be, just to punish me for making him pull the EMPTY shopping bin.

To make the walk home a little more pleasant I bought some juice popcycles and told them that whomever didn't complain on the way home would get one after lunch. It helped a lot.

After we did the shopping I put as many of the heavy things as possible in bags on the stroller and strapped Ethne in the front of the stroller. Then I had Enoch and Ezra pull the shopping bin together so that it wouldn't be too hard. They were drooping and walking very slowly so We stopped and I fed them a banana. After that they were a lot more pleasant(especially Enoch) and they said they now had the strength to go on. We stopped one more time to let them rest and then I told them I was worried the Popsicles would melt if we didn't hurry and they made it the rest of the way without problems.

It is times like this that they are curssing me for not having a car, and I am saying thank heavens we don't have a car because I would NEVER put myself through this if we did. And honestly, they need to learn to be tough and handle hard things in their life.

I was horribly disappointed though when we got home and I realized we lugged home 4 liters of "sparkling" water instead of regular water :( all that work for nothing. The water here tastes nasty so I finally decided to buy some bottled water now that a friend lent us her little shopping troley/bin thingy.

It did make it worse though that we got part way home and had to turn around and go back to see if I had dropped my sunglasses in the grocery store (which we didn't find). They weren't happy about that and neither was I. I was ready to say goodbye to $30 and brand new ugly sunglasses but I felt too irresponsible so we went back to look for them anyway. Very disappointing they weren't there.

What a day. It took us three hours to do that round trip. If we were in the states with proper car parks and a car it would have taken me an hour. But I still think it is a good experience for the kids and good exercise for me. I can walk and sweat off a few pounds :)