Real Life vs. Rockwell Life

I am almost certain that Norman Rockwell DID NOT have children; or if he did, he most certainly did not take them out anywhere. Otherwise, his idyllic paintings would have been DRASTICALLY different than the peaceful,serene portraits he painted of them. We have all seen his paintings of children who seem to get along with each other, never make any messes, and whom have adults smiling at them. Ok, so we do often get the latter part of that,but thats where it ends! I have all these wonderful things I am going to do with my boys in my head all week at work, and then reality sets in. It is a major undertaking just getting everyone to the car. And once in the car, Nick takes off his shoes and socks immediately;not a problem when it is sunny and nice out;but is more than annoying when it is rainy and cold! We get to our destination and schlep everyone out of the car. That is when it starts. "Michael come here!" "Where's YOUR jacket??!" "WHO stinks???!!" Then we get in to the restaurant. All the silverware gets pushed to the opposite end of Nicholas,Mike and I are getting kicked in the legs by a two yr old flinging his feet, Michael announces he has to go potty, and Nick has managed to get his shoes off again...and we have not even ordered our food yet! By the time everyone orders, it seems like we have half the menu ON our table,which causes another problem...no space! Suddenly, what Nick is eating becomes PART of the table,himself, and the floor. The more we wipe him, the more we get on ourselves. By the time the meal is over, Mike and I have not had a real conversation, we are covered in pink yogurt, and Mike announces "I need a cigarette!". Shopping is another entity all together! Then there is shopping for a Halloween costume. I took the boys out to do this yesterday. I figured that it is still early enough to get a good costume, and that we would find one the first store we went to. I got everyone ready and we headed to TOYS R US to have "FUN" picking out a costume for Michael. I seem to remember that this large toy store having everything you need for kiddy fun! Not so. They only had ONE aisle of costumes, (and they were rather picked through already), and why must they put displays in the MIDDLE of the aisles so that it is next to impossible to get your cart down them???!! Michael found a pirate costume, but when I looked at the price I became disgusted! $40!!! $40 for a cheap costume in a plastic bag!! UGH!! I was so disgusted we left the store immediately. We ended up finding a Ninja costume at Target around $20. Not exactly cheap, but better than 40! I am also fed up with the lack of quality of these costumes. Part of it ripped as Michael took it out of the bag. UGH!! He can still wear it,but has been told that he must put it away to prevent it from ripping more. He was quite upset, and so was I. I had spent $20 on something that ripped within 5 minutes of getting it home.