Adventures in babysitting

I've been on my own with the kids for most of the day while Hubby was out at a football game. Since I got home from my annual holiday pastry extravaganza with Mom and Nic (more on that later...) not long before Hubby had to leave for his Transplant Team Christmas party, I couldn't do the grocery shopping yesterday and I didn't get a chance to get online and put in an order for delivery. Soooo... Grocery shopping with three kids. Yeah. We stopped at the coffee bar and got drinks, but that didn't keep them distracted for long. For some reason, every item I put in the cart offended Lil Joe. He did not want the lettuce or the celery or the orange juice or the iced tea. He screamed for a solid 5 aisles, only to calm down upon reaching the deli and getting a piece of cheese. Princess and Hoss kept running ahead of me down the aisles, much to my embarrassment and chagrin. But we made it out of the store mostly unscathed. As we approached home, the car began riding a bit rough. I eased off of road into the Park and Ride lot with a sense of dread. "Are we running out of gas?!" Hoss asked. "No. I think we have a flat tire," I replied. I was right. Princess and Hoss were very excited, and asked if they could come out for a look. "I've never seen a flat tire in real life!" Princess exclaimed. "I've only seen one on TV." We have AAA, but my card was not in my wallet. Also, I figured that my milk would spoil and the natives would get mightly restless if I waited for someone to come out and do the work for me. Sooo... I unloaded enough of the groceries to access the jack, lug wrench and access to the spare tire. And I got to work. Thankfully, a guy did stop and offer to help, since he had a lot more weight to put behind loosening the lug nuts than I have. One of the bolts was so stripped it broke off. But, between the two of us, we got the tire replaced without much more incident. So, who wants to buy me a new tire for Christmas?