On Friday, a friend of mine was taking her two daughters to visit Santa who was making an appearance at a local kids boutique store. For lack of anything better to do on Friday morning and to hang out with some other moms, I decided to take the boys over and check it out.

When we got there, there were maybe 5 or 6 other child/mom pairs. All were little girls and all were sitting so peacefully on their mom’s laps while Santa was starting to read “‘Twas the Night Before . . .”. I pulled up my double wide stroller with my two safely and firmly buckled inside. Santa greeted us and told us to join the circle.

“Uh, thanks, Santa, but I think they’ll stay in the stroller for now.”

The little girls all seemed to have lovely little outfits on, specially chosen for their visit with Santa. Meanwhile, my kids had on whatever I could grab and put on them that morning as they screeched and wrestled me to get away. Daniel’s hair was going in all different directions. I actually did try to put some gel on a cow lick to hold it down. I tried to get a few last minute nose and face wipes in when they were pinned in their car seats before we went into the mall.

While Santa is reading the story, Daniel immediately spots the snacks and starts loudly requesting things. Hoping that a juice box might keep him quiet for Santa to finish, I handed one over. Daniel sucked it down and asked for the “blue one.” One juice box was enough as he was already bouncing up and down in his stroller seat, but he moved on to cookie requests.

I tried to keep him quiet by whispering things in his ear which kind of worked, as long as Andrew wasn’t trying to swat the back of his head or pull on his seat back.

Anyway, after story-time was over, I let Daniel get down and run around. He had no interest in Santa, but I coerced him into having his picture taken. He wanted nothing to do with going up to Santa on his own, so I corralled him while another mom got Andrew into place. So, here’s our pic. Santa assured us moms that his knees are very strong. Good to know.