Dan (my brother-in-law), and I took the kids to the zoo Saturday. I had sliced the cheese. I had put in a container of tofu spread. I had filled a water bottle. I had thrown in some carrots, though who knows why since Rose wasn't going to eat them, and they weren't going to provide me enough energy to make it all the way to the elephants, past the penguins, and back to the butterflies. I had the ever present backpack, except I hadn't checked the stocks—three rice crackers, two fruit leather, no bars. Remember I have a child, a picky child, a gluten-free picky child, who, like her mother, loses control when she needs to eat.

After a bunch of whining on Rose's part and a sincere apology on mine, she deigned to dip the remaining rice crackers in the tofu spread, eat one of Dan's fruit leather (of course he had brought enough to share), and she and Miriam went skipping off to the tigers.

They merrily skipped along until Rose accidentally whacked Miriam in the face, and Miriam decided she needed to recover by sitting in the double stroller's second seat. Dan and I brought four children and two stroller seats. Have you caught big mistake number 2? What part of my brain thought I was going to carry 13 pounds of David in the front pack and probably an equivalent amount in the backpack while walking several miles? How did I forget that Rose has never walked the zoo? And the "if she has it I want it" factor, how did we not figure that in?

We left the zoo having not seen an elephant, penguin, or butterfly. We left in spectacular fashion with much screaming and crying. On every parent's face it was written in neon, "Thank God that's not happening to me!"

(We actually had a lovely time at the park after that, and I'm hoping this will be a touchstone event, "Remember that time you had so many temper tantrums that we had to leave the zoo. . .")

On to big mistake number three. Rose spent the night at Mom's house, and David and I joined to go to a children's fair. I started having an intense low blood sugar moment, sat down to get a snack, and the cupboard was bare. This time in addition to none of the dry goods, I hadn't taken the refrigerator food. Oh yeah, no water either, and it was hot.

Luckily, the fair was at a shopping center. Rose painted shells with Grandma while I went shopping. Mainstream grocery stores don't have much Rose can/will eat, but I got a bag of corn chips and her favorite brand of cheddar, and she made corn chip sandwiches. I felt much more sane after a sandwich and bottle of water.

But that didn't save me from big mistake number four; it was already made, just waiting for me. It took us several more hours to leave. I was a bit frantic by the time we got Rose, David, and all their gear in the car. However, no one was screaming yet. I started the car, and . . .nothing. I had left the lights on.

Poor mom, who was also exhausted, called a friend to help us jump the car. Success. Then he noticed I had a flat tire. At this point, I retired into a dimly lit room. David nursed. I tried to decide if I was going to have hysterics. Our friend, Harvey saved us again with his handy dandy electric pump, and we got everyone reloaded into the car.

Rose fell asleep; David only whimpered instead of the all out screaming hysterics I had been expecting; and when we got home, I had a big glass of lemonade. I managed not to drop it.