Kissing Stuffed Animals (Not The Kind You're Thinking Of) and A Party At The Park.

People keep asking me if I've taken all three boys out at once yet. This question baffles me because I have to stop and wonder how I would ever get anything done if I chose not to leave the house with them. I also have to question my degree of sanity had we not yet left the house in four weeks. 
Along a similar vein, I do often think to myself, "Well, I did choose to have three kids and therefore I kind of have to get used to, you know, living and doing with them." 
So the answer is "yes," I have taken all three boys out with me. 
We've been to Target, the pediatrician's office, grocery shopping (the SAHM's trifecta) as well as to the playground that is just down the street from our house. The common denominator in all of these outings is that they are relatively controlled and typically two thirds of the crew are strapped down. This means I can easily keep an eye or a hand on everyone and I don't have to worry every thirty-seven seconds if I'm going to lose someone or leave someone behind. 
That said, yesterday was my very first uncontrolled outing with the three ring circus and while I'm mentally high-fiving myself for having survived, there are a few things I would like to say about said outing. 
Yesterday was Carter's unofficially official last day of Pre-School. What I mean by that is had we not had eleventy-five snow days this year, yesterday would have been his last day until September but because of the snow and by the good graces of Mothers With Brand New Babies, he'll be returning the first week in June for five more days. 

In celebration of said milestone, his class of seventeen 3 year old's and their families with equally aged children under the age of 3, all gathered at a local park for a picnic celebration. 
While that sounds nice and sweet, the picnic pavilion was situated a top a steeply graded hill that culminated in a lake. A LAKE. A lake without some sort of barrier between it and a steady stream of high fructose-laden three year olds running amok.
Pretty much the dumbest idea ever, if you ask me, and the reason why, for approximately two hours and seventeen minutes, my left eye twitched and I never once sat down.
Obviously there was a reason I dressed each of the boys in neon and I'm not ashamed to admit that it was the best decision I had made that day, second to bribing them with Chick-Fil-A milkshakes when it was time to leave the park.  
As if that wasn't nerve-wracking enough, the Nature Center at the local park decided to amp up the fun by bringing out a few of their "friendlier" animals for the kids to pet. Toads, salamanders and a creepy orange snake were all the rage with the touchy-feely preschoolers. It was the kind of cute I could handle.
What I couldn't handle was the taxidermy squirrel on a tree stump that Maclane insisted on picking up and carrying around the pavilion with him. At one point while trying to deter a swarm of sticky toddler fingers from poking out the eyes of my newborn, I turned to make eyes with Maclane only to see him stooped over kissing his brand new dead squirrel friend squared on his little dead mouth. 
It was all I could do to stifle the vomit. Once I pulled myself together and could maneuver the stroller without running over someone else's unattended child, I quickly swooped in and redirected him to the Tupperware full of turtles (true story) and then kicked myself for not taking a picture of him making out with a petrified squirrel. 
Okay, so I made it home with all three kids in tow, not one of them rolled down the hill into the lake and for a brief moment, just one of them made out with a dead animal. 
I think I might actually call that outing a win, no?