The store is crammed with kids fresh out of high school looking for a place to hang out, to update their wardrobe with their first big, summer paycheck. I weave around them with my big stroller and my frumpy Target clothes. The pants slip down my waist, the crotch hanging two or three inches below where it should. It’s just hit me how matronly I’ve become. I feel like fleeing what once was my favorite store and hiding behind racks of Target clothes.

Hana’s head is resting against the side of her stroller, her eyelids thick over her eyes despite the noisy chaos surrounding us. I rifle through the sale racks, coming up for air empty handed. I dive in again, pouncing on a shelf advertising eight panties for $24. Not bad.

I peer, poke, and prod through the different piles. Few catch my eye. Sudden self-consciousness penetrates my reserve, and I become aware that I’m a matronly woman, sifting through piles of teenager underwear with the high school boy employees watching me.

“Are you finding everything all right?” one asks.

I nod too quickly. “Yep.” I pretend to move on and sidle my way back. The boys aren’t fooled. They’re still watching. I grab a pair of each panty that caught my eye. Only three. Crap. My face and neck grow warm as the rest of my body gets colder. I wonder how red I look right now. I stuff the panties on top the stroller and hasten to the register.

I grumble mentally as someone cuts in front of me just as a register opens. Another one opens, and I race to it before it happens again. I splatter the wad of panties over the counter. The high school boy looks over them.

“This all for you?”

“Yeah.”

He rings them up as another employee comes up behind him.

“Actually these are 8 for $24.”

The clerk has put the panties back on the counter and lowers his hands. There they are, sprawled for the world to see. “Yeah, I didn’t see any others I liked,” I answer.

“They’re $7.50 each if you buy them separately.”

I think I’m starting to sweat now. A frenzied panic overcomes my sense and frugality. Just give me the freaking panties! “Yeah, that’s fine.”

He totals the sale and puts the underwear in a bag. I throw the receipt in the bag and weave back out the store. Buyers remorse sets in when I reach the exit. I just bought three pairs of underwear for the price of eight. My bargain shopper status is hereby revoked.

Bleach fumes invade my nostrils as my knuckles scrub into spots staining Hana’s onesies. Her clothes collect stains as avidly as polar fleece attracts dog hair. Her wails penetrate the three sets of doors separating her from me. Breaking into the sound is Cadence’s quick footstep. She’s always hurrying from one room to another. Her excited jabber and footsteps fade away. I twist the faucet knob on and run the clothing under lukewarm water, drowning the bleach out of them. The wailing alters, deepening and escalating. I nudge the knob into the off position, and wander towards the sound, the clothes balled in my left hand.

It isn’t Hana’s cry anymore. It’s Cadence’s.

At some point the clothes leave my hand. I will later find them abandoned on the lid of my laundry basket, set like a breakfast tray of milky cotton on my bed.

Rivers of tears fall down both of Cadence’s cheeks. There’s blood in her hair. My sister-in-law explains that Cadence has fallen down the stairs, breaking her fall with her face. I take Cadence from my sister-in-law and hold her close while taking stock of her injuries. A small patch of skin under her right nostril has been scraped away. Her top lip is swelling, and blood is pooling on her teeth.

A shakiness enters my hand as I prod her lip, remembering the times my brother and I bit through our lips, and the other time the same brother’s tooth was bludgeoned in half. Dotting blood from her skin with toilet paper and a diaper wipe, I comfort myself that her lip is not punctured on the outside. I raise the injured lip, taking care to avoid the stiff, reddened flesh. Her teeth are still intact. Another relief.

She pulls away from my fingers, and I hold her close, helpless to quiet her pain, but trying anyway.

A solid block of clouds is camped over the valley. The rain taps on the windows, taunting us with what we can’t do today. Cadence’s feet pummel the floor as she runs from the kitchen like an escaped convict. A half eaten peanut butter sandwich is waving in her right hand, her velvet sleeve bunching at the elbow. It’s one in the afternoon, yet Cadence and her aquamarine Ariel nightgown have yet to be parted.

She turns and smiles at me, at soggy wad of sandwich squishing between her teeth. I take chase, cornering her in Hana’s room with a Kleenex at the ready. She giggles, spraying bits of sandwich from her mouth. Moisture glistens beneath her nose, a leak I have yet to conquer. I battle the mighty snot, squelching it with every pinch of my tissue, trying not to gag as I do. Missing my signal, Cadence blows as I take the tissue away. A bubble forms and pops, before my tissue can save me.

Ew.

I mop up the aftermath and discard the tissue. There are so many things left to be done; getting Cadence dressed would be one of them, but one of the few pluses of being sick is wallowing in one’s pajamas all day. Aside from tucking a couple blankets over her legs, I leave her be.

Note to self: snot-proof my wardrobe.

The only sound is the clicking of Jake’s mouse and keyboard as he engages in a mighty battle of cyber will. The sound is welcome now that both Cadence’s and Hana’s cries have ceased. Hana’s monitor emits low static crackles, but no screams.

My body feels ragged, abused by an excess of tears and shouts, worn by the resistance of childish excitement. All this over a trip to the park.

It began well. Cadence gathered speed over the grass by lowering her head and swinging her arms behind her back. Hana seemed content slurping on her fingers and burbling baby language from her car seat. Cadence’s hair alternated floating into her eyes and behind her head as Jake pushed her ever higher on the swing, and her pink crocs ground into the wood chips as she ran to the slides. Squeals of delight and fear punctuated the impending dusk evening.

Then it was time to leave. Squeals of delight became wails of despair. Even Hana joined in, the grip of the infant seat harness now torture. No manner of calm explaining could sway these two from their torment.

But Mommy has won, calm overtaking the chaotic.  The clicking has finished too. My silence is complete. Why doesn’t it feel like a victory?

All is well at the Schroeder house. Hana is packed in her infant car seat. Cadence is dressed, her hair brushed, her markers tucked into tight little fists. A stray strand of hair falls into my face. I set Hana down, and make one last trip to the mirror to clip it back into place. A few tucks, sweeps with the comb, and plasterings of hairspray do the trick.

Down the hall, Cadence is reprimanding her little sister in a high pitched baby voice she reserves for Hana. My hand dusts over the bathroom door frame, my feet straying to the hallway. She talks again.

“Hana,” she coos, “Hana, don’t color on youwself.”

What? I barrel out of my bedroom, and weave around a guilty Cadence. “What did you do, Cadence?”

“Momma, Hana colored on hewself. I said don’t color on youwself, Hana.” Cadence’s finger waves sternly at Hana, a gesture I’m certain she’s learned from me.

The car seat canopy is blocking Hana’s face. I drop to my heels and peer inside. My youngest daughter is gnawing at her knuckles oblivious to the green marker lines coursing each cheek. An uncapped green marker has been placed by her feet, the tip pointing at the real culprit.

Supressing my giggles without much success, I explain to Cadence that she can’t color on her sister. She bows her head as she listens, tucking her marker filled hands to her chest. “Do you understand, Cadence?” She looks at me, her eyes round and serious.

“Okay.”

Satisfied for now, I snap a few pictures of Cadence gripping her markers over Hana’s seat and of Hana’s green face. I never would have guessed I’d already be getting “the baby did it” excuse.