Costco, Toilet Paper, Tantrums, and Thoughts

Today, after yet another bad encounter with the Student Health Center (I am now convinced that socialized medicine would be the pits.), I decided to head to Costco. What possessed me to take two coughing and hungry girls to Costco, you ask? Toilet paper. Because, after all, if you don't have toilet paper, you don't have anything. That's why I buy in bulk. I have a slight fear of running out of toilet paper at an inopportune time so I take TP inventory more frequently than most, I think. I got my toilet paper and other items and loaded my car. That's when the girls had had it! And I mean, HAD IT! I decided my best course of action was inaction, so I ignored the whines and screams, turned off the radio, sat in silence and drove. It was in this moment that I looked at my 36 pack of toilet paper sitting in the front seat (we have a sedan, people), and began to think: Where will we be when this thing runs out? The holidays will most likely be approaching again. We may not have very much money. We will have a 4 year old and a 2 year old; which for some reason, sounds so much older than a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Paul will no longer be a student. We'll be getting ready to move across the country, only this time, with no idea if or when we will be coming back. It's exciting and a little bit weird that Paul is almost done being a student and then we'll have to face real life, a life without Monopoly money (student loans). Forget that his graduation announcements came in the mail the other day; forget that he's been getting his bar application ready; forget that it's now March and graduation is in April; it was the toilet paper and screaming children that made this all hit home for me.