You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.

This isn't a newsbreaking thought, but sometimes I must seem like the weirdest person around. If I were to start throwing out examples as to why I'm the weirdest person around, I'd still be sitting here at 3am writing, so I'll just start with a few. Or one, actually.

Today was supposed to be 'stay home and mow lawns and pull weeds' day, and because of that, we decided to spend the best part of the afternoon trawling after the kids in the toy section of The Warehouse. Procrastination. It's an illness. (By the way, that wasn't the 'I'm so weird' example. I'm getting to that bit now.)

Because my lil' camera is an extension of my right hand, and because I can't go anywhere without my right hand, I had to take my lil' camera with me on our grand excursion to The Warehouse. And, under the pretense that I was photographing Christmas present ideas, I took photos of the kids looking at toys. Photos of the kids testing out toys. Photos of the kids riding the toys around the aisles...

The crazy thing is, I just had to. I felt slightly self-conscious and a little bit nuttier-than-usual; kneeling in the middle of an aisle to snap a pic of the munchkins as they mulled over leapfrog laptops and whatnot. But much as I tried to stick the camera in my back pocket and pretend that I'd left it at home, I kept right on fishing it back out and snapping pics like the crazy snap happy life-tourist that I am.

Is it weird? To chase your kids around a shop, snap snappity snapping photos as you go? Because I never ever see other parents doing this. Never. And personally, I think they should. I think people should capture a broad range of moments in their children's lives. Not just 'here's Sally in her best party frock and Peter making a mud pie'. Our little sproggits are going to be all grown up before we know it, and we'll forget these small moments. Being uneventful moments in the scheme of things, they'll be amid the first memories to fade. But we'll know that they took place, and maybe because of that, it'll be these every day non-events we'll miss the most.

Okay before you (oh invisible and likely non-existent readers) sneak off, I'm not finished with the inane prattle yet! Sheesh. How rude. :P

You may have noticed the munchkins are wearing different outfits in the bottom row of photos. That's right folks; we're such sad-sacks, we did this 'window shop at The Warehouse' two days in a row. Yes that's right, we went there yesterday too.

Boy, were we trying hard to avoid maintaining the outdoor areas of our home.

Truth be told, I'm not a shopping person. But sometimes I just feel like going in to a shop. Any shop, I don't care. I just wanna go into a shop. Those garishly bright lights and rows of crap I don't need are sometimes a novelty to me.

Because unless I lock the kids in the house with a box of cereal and bowl of water while I sneak out for a couple of hours, I can never go into a shop. The Warehouse, with its loads and loads of mass-produced crap, is just about the only store (asides from Toyworld) where I can keep the kinetic energy ball that is Guy Smiley contained to a manageable area without him rocketing out the store entrance within five seconds of walking through the door.

According to Guy Smiley, the funniest game in the whole entire world is to make a mad dash for the door and try to throw himself onto the sidewalk before I can grab him. Any attempt to restrain him is met by  flailing thrashing squirming limbs. And not just four limbs. When he wants to escape your grasp, he suddenly grows an extra set of arms and legs.

It. Does. My. Head. In.

[This would have been a good time to insert a photo of Guy Smiley peddling his chubby lil' legs away from me.  I completely forgot to get one of those shots. Just pretend it's in this space.]

Given the givens, I didn't expect to make it to the homeware section, and I didn't care to, but somehow between the four aisles of toys at one end of the Warehouse and the kids fold-out foam couches at the other, I managed to spot a couple of items (aka mass produced crap) that I wanted. And thus had to photograph. *facepalm*

The red and white polka dot teapot I want simply because it's red with white polka dots (and it matched my hoody at the time. How cool would that have been, walking around with my teapot-hoody twinset?) And the mugs promise a spoonful of summer with every sip. I reckon if I woke up and had a coffee in those mugs every morning, I'd quite possibly never be grumpy again.

One day, if we can stay in the Warehouse long enough for me to get to a checkout counter without a small child having a total global meltdown, I'll buy some and test this theory.

Teapots and coffee mugs aside, there's nothing I covet quite like this camera. One day Canon 1000D. One day you will be mine.

End note: I didn't get a photo of the Warehouse staffer who gave me the hard word about letting my wee minions ride the toys, nor a photo of the Lily Bug's crestfallen face when I told her it was time to put the bike back... But if I had, I'd probably be uploading it right about now.

End note 2: I've never locked the kids in the house with a box of cereal and bowl of water and crept out to the shops. Just in case you were wondering. (Though, there are days when I'd like to...)

 Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people. 
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here. 
[laughs maniacally; starts to disappear] 
Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.