Shopping for Paint

One of the hardest things about being a mother is how difficult simple tasks become!  Today, I took my offspring to the local Benjamin Moore paint store, knowing it would be a challenge.  They are only open until five o’clock, so leaving them with my husband and going in the evening doesn’t work.  Sophie and I had a nice chat in the car about not touching, not running, and not yelling.  All that was quickly forgotten.  She immediately starts pulling out the sample cards, and then spent the rest of the time running around the store yelling.  Kate was drawn to the display of little sample paint jars, and removed them faster than I could put them back on.  She is just too heavy and strong-willed for me to hold for very long.  In the midst of this, I am trying to choose between countless shades of cream and ask the clerk (who kept answering her phone) for advice.  It was crazy.  I settled on “calming cream” in large part because I thought the name might be good omen.  I mentioned that to the clerk, but she either didn’t get it, or didn’t think it was funny.  Considering the havoc the girls were wreaking, it was probably the latter.

Then we went to Lowe’s to buy all the paraphernalia we’ll need to repaint the family room.  Of course, this will be a major challenge too.  It’s so difficult and slow to do these kinds of projects with small children around.  We have to paint at night or on the weekends, or get their grandparents to watch them.  Blocking off the family room for the week that this will most likely take isn’t going to be very popular with the little tyrants either.  I try to remind myself that this won’t last forever, and someday I will be able to do things again.