Best laid plans

I've owned a Pontiac Grand Am for 5 years this month and how does it repay me - with battery dying overnight; discovered by husband this morning as he attempted to move car in order to get his truck out from the front of driveway. Fortunately it's a Saturday so we have nothing important to do but tackle this new found emergency.

He gives me 2 choices, drive him to work or wait a bit while he jump starts it, grab the kid and her stuff and drive directly to Sears to get a new battery.

I choose B, he works one hour away and do not desire to be in vehicle with baby for 2 hours of the day BUT freak out about not walking the dog yet, changing baby out of her Halloween Skeleton pajamas, feeding the cats, eating breakfast, gathering water and supplies! He gives me an extra 30 minutes to pull everything together and then we are off, forgetting to drink coffee and unable to find car mobile phone charger for phone that has 20% remaining battery.

First stop is drive through Starbucks, second stop is drive through Chick Fil A and consume both in car while feeding baby bits of breakfast burrito. I have become a huge fan of the drive through since I don't have to turn the car off or remove baby from her car seat throne. The drive through was invented for moms!

Third stop is Sears where they must be expecting me because there is an open garage to pull the car directly into. Fortunately they are located at the mall so we have something to do for 2 hours.

I'm not a mall person, in fact I can't remember a single Saturday where I deliberately went to the mall to entertain my child but the toddler playground is really cool. It's a nice spongy place with cute little cars for small kids to climb into and a house with toddler slide! Finally a place where I don't fear she will be trampled by wild monster children over 3.

I recall a time when I didn't have kids that I'd have been bored out of my mind to spend 2 hours at the mall - well it's one thing when you have money to spend and it's a cool mall but this is the dumpy Coral Springs mall where shops are blah and the guy called to say there's more wrong with the car, something about dirty fuel injection and air conditioner coolent so cost is double to $300, but I digress. The thought occurred to me that it was a fun excursion because I had a little buddy to hang out with. I remembered something a friend said while I was pregnant, "you will never be alone again". I now understand what she meant by that and it's pretty cool!