Borders... with Children

Today Adrian was going to be coming home from work a bit later, so I decided to bide sometime with the kids by taking a trip to Borders after picking Sophie up from school. I had a lovely gift card from my birthday to spend (thanks to the ladies who gave it to me, if you're reading this!!) and had kept meaning to go some night after the kids went to bed, but had not managed to do so in a month, so I figured hey let's all just go.

I told the kids in the car that Borders was kind of like a library so everybody needed to whisper and try not to disturb all the people looking at books. Yeah, that lasted about 5 minutes, with Ben doing his loudest possible raspy whisper that entire 5 minutes. It's actually quite a funny whisper - Ben does the same thing during Nina's naps when I remind him it's quiet time, but I'm not sure why I bother because I seriously think his "whisper" is louder than his talking voice. I first went to the art book section, which by far is my favorite, but of course those art books are amazingly expensive - the one's I want anyway. It is one of my heart's desires to some day get Gardner's Art Through the Ages, but so far I've not been able to shell out the bucks for it (I think its around 150 dollars). If I ever do procure this book it will be put on my short list of things to grab if the house is burning.

So there I was in the art books and I sat the kids down in the isle of the art books (meaning Sophie and Ben, Nina was in her stroller) and gave them a Harry Potter inspired knitting pattern book that I grabbed off a nearby shelf for them to look at. That lasted a couple of minutes, enough time for me to drool over a beautiful J.W. Waterhouse book which did not fit in my budget. Once Sophie and Ben began shoving each other with laughs(Sophie) and cries(Benjamin) becoming embarrassingly loud I decided it was time to switch sections. Off I went to cookbook section. Probably my second favorite area of a bookstore. I started by briefly looking through Jerry Seinfield's wife's, Jessica, new cookbook called Deceptively Delicious. I really like the idea of this cookbook - hiding fruit and veggie purees in kid pleasing meals. I've never actually done this, but I do put shredded carrot in a lot of my tomato based pasta sauces so I thought this would be a good one to buy. Sophie and Ben again started to fight over who got to hold onto the stroller, so off we went to the music and DVD section.

Music section - this place is a minefield for kids, full of those listening stations for the kids to fight over. I told Sophie to help Ben listen to a song at one of the stations -hoping it wasn't Snoop Dog, I was a bad mom and didn't even check... I wanted to take every second of the momentary distraction to find a Muse CD. I found it - Absolution. I have bought a couple songs from this album off of itunes and have loved them so much that I figured just buying the whole CD would be worth it. It also wasn't too expensive, bonus. So I quickly checked out how sturdy the packaging for the CD was and gave it to screaming Nina who was mad that she too couldn't play with the headphones that Sophie and Ben were using. The CD quelled her screams and she turned it over and over, probably looking for any weak points in the packaging... I went back up to the top of the isle were Ben and Sophie were to stop their latest fight of course over the headphones and Sophie asked me, "Mom who are the Fall Out Boys?" Lovely, not exactly the music I would have chosen for my 8 and 3 year old, but hopefully 2 minutes of it, with the majority of that spent fighting over the headphones, won't hurt them.

Glutton for more punishment I headed over to the DVD section just to see what I could find by scanning the shelves as I walked and directed children to not run up and down the music isles. I spied Impromptu and the special music edition of Romeo + Juliet and pulled them off the shelf. I had never heard of Impromptu, but it had a younger Hugh Grant on the cover in period costume so of course I grabbed it - couldn't stop my hand really. And a DVD of Romeo + Juliet has been on my wish list for a while (I have the VHS tape). So armed with 4 possible items to buy (Deceptively Delicious, Absolution(being chewed on at that moment by Nina), Impromptu, and Romeo + Juliet) I pulled out my last "get kids to behave" card and went to the kids section to deliberate. I gave Ben a Charlie and Lola pop up book to look at and Sophie found a Halloween chapter book to read and I told them to be good so I could make my decision. (Surprisingly this really worked.) Nina had already cracked the plastic CD case of Absolution, so it looked like getting that was a given, but I wanted to get something else too - my birthday still right, since I was using a birthday gift card?!! I resisted the urge to actually buy a movie I'd never seen (as lovely and historically dressed as Hugh Grant was on the cover) and be happy with the tape I have of Romeo + Juliet for the time being, so I chose Deceptively Delicious (after their behavior in the art, cookbook, and music/DVD sections, I will feel absolutely no guilt in sneaking spinach into every possible meal from now on).

We put the kids books away, with many cries and whines, but that Charlie and Lola pop up book was 18.99 and Sophie has SO many chapter books at home, so I was not to be persuaded into buying them. They had calmed down by the time we got to the check out line, but much like the grocery stores have candy in the check out lines so do Borders stores - curse them!! So then began the whines for Harry Potter jelly slugs and Lindt chocolate truffles (but to be honest I couldn't blame them for that one because I was inwardly having my own struggle with wanting them too:)). I hushed them and told them no candy was to be had and thankfully the line was very short. I didn't get a look at the cashier when I gave the chewed on Muse CD to her, but I am assuming she was thoroughly grossed out because she exclaimed, "Did you know this CD is wet?!!" Oops... I guess I should have wiped it off, but I really wasn't thinking about the drool involved in Nina chewing on a CD for a half and hour, sorry Border's cashier! She was pretty unfriendly for the rest of the transaction. Oh well, I bet they have hand-sanitizer and I was pretty much home free at that point and was just happy to be minutes away from leaving the store and the annoyed looks from childless shoppers. In the car I immediately, before even starting the car, flipped up the DVD screen and told the kids I was going to listen to my new CD and they just needed to deal with it - after all the cries, whines and screams at Borders their whines about watching Harry Potter in the car were almost white noise. Muse was the perfect mood stabilizer and every one calmed down to their dulcet tones (Ruled by Secrecy is especially soothing).

So was it worth it to take all the kids to Borders to use my bday gift card on a lovely cookbook and a wonderful CD?? I think so. I'm pretty good about blocking out the unpleasantness and I'm sure I'll be back again sometime for that Hugh Grant movie and possibly another cookbook too. Maybe next time I'll buy some Lindt truffles first and pop one in every time a kid fight starts to help remain positive.