Packing up and herding cats: is anyone listening?

I don't know if other parents of young children experience but I feel like I am herding cats... all.day.long. No strike that, I have a cat, and you can usually get her to go in the general direction you want her to go without too much hassle, she just looks at you like "really? this is a huge waste of my time" but herding my children to the car- fail. To be fair I just have one that has to be herded at this point, the other is scooped up and carried, but the one... oh my goodness gracious. He is easily distracted, sensitive, and has a mind of his own. The getting out the door process which I think should take 3-5 minutes takes 20-30. We have to find the shoes, cry over the shoes, refuse to put them on, throw them, refuse to go the bathroom, finally give in and go to the bathroom, refuse to pull up the pants, decide we need a drink, decide yes we will be bringing our shoes after all, pick out 27 toys to bring on the 1 mile journey to HEB, scream because mommy won't bring us a snack on said 1 mile adventure, scream because mommy won't carry our 27 toys, and finally make our way to the car. It's a process. By the time we all make it to the car we are grumpy, sweaty (from all the running), and over whatever errand we are running, but at that point we sure as heck are going because there is no way we did that for nothing. Im thinking this might get better with time, but for now I just have to laugh, and ask myself if this is really how running a simple errand is at our house. It's just comical. I mean clearly more comical if it were happening to someone else and I was just a silent observer, but comical this way too.

And packing up, forget the getting into the car, what about all the prep before. I feel like we are moving into wherever we are going. We need the emergency pants, the diapers, the wipes, the nursing cover, the toys, the snacks, and who knows what else. Some days I get to the car and realize I don't have the keys, but we do have the kitchen sink so we're good! It is truly amazing how much stuff kids bring with them, how much we think they need. As we were packing up for superhero gymnastics today I had to laugh at what we were taking. I had to ask myself if we were moving into the Y or just going for an hour, turns out we were going for an hour, but in the event of a disaster we were probably set to stay for 3-5 days (ok not really).

and finally, I feel like I spend my day talking to a brick wall. I have an almost 3 year old and he is so smart, and caring, and hilarious, but he's 3 and listening and focusing aren't his strong suits yet. So we spend a good portion of the day with me talking and him ignoring me or just choosing to disregard what I am saying. Sometimes (probably more often than it should) the volume increases, and still no listening. yesterday, after he ran in the street, flailed around, and screamed at me, I may have raised my voice (ok let's just be honest, I yelled), he turned to me and said "Mommy I'm going to write Grammy and Poppy a letter, Dear Grammy and Poppy, Mommy yelled at me, you need to talk to her. Michael". Yes the kid is a genius that just won't listen... wow