Grocery shopping with...eight?

Yeah, that's right. I decided to make a Giant run with all the kids. Mom said I should go home and leave a couple with my Dad who, at the time was painting Christiana's new bedroom. I had spent the afternoon at my mom's house helping her with her Christmas tree and listening to my kids practice for the Live Nativity at Beachmont next weekend. I realized that I really needed to pick up a couple of things at Giant because we were having friends over for dinner. I also needed the ingredients for a birthday cake for Chrissy and Amanda. I should have listened to Mom!
With the up coming snow storm, I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to go out in the morning before Dave left for work, and I was too tired to go home and then go back out again! It was also nearing dinner time and I needed to be able to feed the kids when we got to the house.
I must have made an interesting picture to those unfortunate enough to witness this little fiasco. I realize that it's a scene all by itself to see me go into the store with all 8 kids. I mean, who in their right mind would attempt that?
The first major problem arose when they didn't have any of those special "big carts". You know, the ones that look like trucks and you can seat at least 3 kids in them? I love those carts! It makes shopping so much easier! Anyway, they didn't have one, so I was trying to make it with a regular cart.
As soon as we made it to the doorway, Matt decided he didn't want to ride on the end of the cart and without any warning jumps off of the cart. Totally unprepared for this little ejection, I begin to run over him! Oops! I tell him to get back on, and certain that he had obeyed quickly, I begin walking, only to run over him again! This happened 2 or 3 more times, and then once we finally got our act together, Nathan walked in front of the cart and I knocked him down as well!
All this took place in the doorway, and the poor soul behind us finally had enough and decided to squeeze around us.
Well, we made it inside the store, and to my joy we found a cart extension! In case you don't know what that is, it's basically a bench on wheels that you can hook to a regular shopping cart by placing the back wheels into holders on the front of the extension. This would give me two extra seats! Hurray! It seems as if my troubles had been solved! Yeah, right! No such luck. Once I was able to get the thing hooked up, I found, to my dismay, that the thing didn't work. Well, back to the regular shopping cart!
I told Jim to grab a basket, since Alyssa was in the back of the cart and Amanda was in the front. He could easily carry the few things that we needed. Naturally, everyone else wanted a basket too, and before I knew it, my kids had pretty much emptied the supply of baskets that were set out. They weren't too thrilled when I told them that they had to put them all back!
We managed to make it down the first isle without incident. Whew! Things were looking up! HA! Think again. Matt couldn't hold on to the end of the cart any more, so he switched places with Nathan. That was okay, except he walked around the store with his head turned around! He must have bumped into three or four people and then he managed to walk right into a stand holding a at least 30 DVDs!
Yep....The stand fell spilling DVDs everywhere. Not only did the stand fall, it almost hit this poor old unsuspecting man! The guy jumped as the stand crashed inches from him, turned around and looks, and then mutters, "What a mess" and walks away.
By this point, I was beyond embarrassment. Me and my little "troop" was center stage amidst the frenzied shopping of those worried about the upcoming storm. All the way through the rest of the store I could hear the whispered comments of those who were watching. Not the comments that are usually made to my face such as, "Are those all your kids?" or, "Wow! Do you run a day care?" No, these were the comments that you aren't supposed to hear, but they were spoken just loud enough to reach my ears. "Man, look at that troop of kids!" "Man, that's a lot of kids!" "Oh, my word!" etc. etc. etc.
If they have cameras throughout Giant like they do in most stores, I imagine the employees might be watching the "Shopping With Eight" re-run for weeks to come. I hope they get more of a laugh out of it than I did!
We did finally make it to the check out, and besides Matt spilling most of the contents of the basket, we headed out of the store with out any more incidents. My comment to the kids when we got to the van, amongst other things was, "This is not going to happen again for a very long time!"
I sure hope I'm right!!!