A Fun, Exhausting Day

So today was my day with a booth at the mall. I wasn’t nervous about it at all…until last night. I had decided not to finish the last few bags, thinking they were unnecessary, but before I went to bed, I was assembling everything in boxes to take to the booth, and started freaking about all the things that I was unprepared for. Since I’ve never taken Nerdy Gerdy to an event like this, I was pretty clueless. What if I wasn’t bringing enough. What if people were upset that I didn’t have more available. What if no one came? What if? What if? What if?

I fell asleep after awhile thinking of all of that, and woke up early in the morning with stuff to do immediately on the brain. I got to work, as the kids had their breakfast, and after awhile finally got out of their p.j.s. As things were getting done, I was feeling more and more stressed, and finally it was time to go.

I started loading the kids into the car, and as I was getting shoes on Elias, he twisted around, and took my face in his chubby hands, and gave me a big open mouthed baby kiss, followed by a glowing, sparkly smile…and a little giggle. It completely melted me, and was exactly what I needed. All my stress disappeared as I realized it didn’t matter if the whole day went wrong. I still had the job as mommy at the end of the day.

The kids were happy to go to my friend Cassandra’s house, with her 3 kids and 2 daycare kids. She said 3 more wouldn’t make that much of a difference. I got everything set up, and the table was just the right size for all of my stuff, and everything went well.

A ton of people took my business card, and a few talked with me for quite awhile about diapers, and took a bunch of printouts about it that I had along with me. I sold 2 diapers by the end of the day (which is honestly more than I thought, because people usually buy diapers in numbers, and not singly. If they wanted more than just a few diapers they would have to order them.) One was one of the one-sized diapers I had prepared for the store stocking this next month. The lady who bought it was a grandma, and her daughter was pregnant and she thought she would be very interested, so took one home to try it out.

The second was a PUL diaper cover that someone bought for their miniature poodle who was in heat. Sadly, this is not the first time that someone has brought up that probable market for my diapers, and for some reason, it’s always brought up by poodle owners. Still, I do not intend to market them that way. I know…you’re all sad. I won’t stop them from buying some, though!

No one but my friend, Beth, came to my presentation, and Beth uses all kinds of cloth diapers on her kids, so I wasn’t sure what to teach her. It probably wasn’t the best idea for me to be scheduled during most kids’ nap times, but I’ll take what I can get. Still, it was fun to catch up with her, since the birth of her newest little girl.

When I went to pick up the kids when all was said and done, it was near bedtime, and Cassandra had taken her kids and my kids to the park. Silje was walking with her girls, Elias was in a stroller, and David was, of course, on a bike. He had found a bike at their place and asked if he could ride it. However, Cassandra was worried about him knowing some street rules as he’s used to riding in the country.

But even without training wheels, much to her surprise, David just picked up the bike and rode it everywhere. He stayed on the sidewalk all the way to the park. (More like raced on the bike and stopping inches from the street at every intersection, giving Cassandra near heart attacks.)

Silje’s first words were “We didn’t get to have enough time here yet!” I told her she got there at 9am. I’m picking her up after 7pm. She was there all day. She glared at me and said “We weren’t here all day because we had breakfast at home!”

Silje and David were exhausted from their play. On the way home, Silje kept going in and out of weeping over this or that. David was unconscious next to her by the time we hit the interstate.

So it’s the end of a really fun day. I got to sit and knit in between people walking by, and got to know the nice ladies in the booths next to me. I’m a bit tired from moving boxes of things, and all the the setup that was required, but I got so see some dear friends who came out to see me, and the kids had a fantastic time too. Knut had a rough day on the farm, as I guess one of the tractors broke down, which is always frustrating, especially when the weather is so perfect. Ah, c’est la vie.