Everyone could write a story on the grocery store. My girlfriend Vittoria in Italy wrote one about her little girl Maggie announcing she had to use the bathroom in the middle of the local market. No one wants to go to the grocery store. Who would want to go there when you could go to Borders? Where would you rather go other than the grocery store? Would you rather take all of your kids to the grocery store, or would you rather go to the dentist? Seriously?
First off, let me tell you how I avoid it. There are three ways to go without kids, or at least all of your kids. The first, my three are in bed lights out asleep between seven and eight, and the grocery store closes at ten. So I can always go at night. This gets in the way of wearing my pajamas, but it is a possibility. The second way to do it is that I have a Thursday afternoon babysitter. This is the day that I scrub the bathrooms and change the sheets. I can go then too. The third way involves taking Lowell, but I can always go when the other two are at school. All three of these options are great, but sometimes I don’t want to spend my “Free” time, for lack of a better word, looking for specials on diet coke and chicken nuggets. So, when I want to spend my time other ways, all four of us go to the grocery store. Some people may be wondering why not leave all three with daddy and go? Ha ha ha. Anyway….
I had only one little baby when Desperate Housewives premiered. I had no idea what Lynette Scavo was going through, especially the scene when her boys send the grocery carts crashing into displays and all the cans topple to the floor. I also think they took out an old lady but I can’t be sure. My kids are not that bad. Yet. I know now why Felicity Huffman won that Emmy.
My rule number one in the grocery store is everyone strapped in. No one has free will in the grocery store. I don’t care if you are hungry, or you are thirsty, or you can walk. You have to sit and you have to be strapped in. Don’t let them act all cute and try to convince you that they are mature enough to walk and help you find what you need in the aisles. It doesn’t matter if you go to the cheap grocery store or the open air freshest of the fresh pesticide free market. Strap them in the cart or wrap them tight in the hippy funky baby carrier. What if they scream? Tune it out. How to tune it out? Well, I have Harry Potter and now Twilight all memorized in my head. Just remember some really good scenes as they scream for junk cereal. (If you give her immortality you are free to go and give my regards to my good friend Carlisle, but you will have to mean it… Mean it Edward, please mean it) or (Expecto Patronum… prongs, his patronus was his father…we love our children, we always protect them…) and yes, people are going to stare, and wonder how you stand it. But a lot of people are going envy your nerves of steel too.
If you can’t take the crying, I get it. There are days when I can’t take it either. All three of my monkeys have a special blankie. If you need the re-enforcement by all means drag it in the grocery store. Just be prepared to stay for hours looking for it if it gets lost. My brother dropped his in a frozen food section if I am not mistaken. My daughter has left several Disney Characters all over the store. They could call it Orlando and charge admission. Don’t be ashamed to go to lost and found and ask if anyone found your son’s tennis shoes either. They were there. Another good trick is the snack or candy routine. They say don’t bribe kids with food, I say do what you have to do to keep your sanity. Goldfish and animal crackers are the best, as my sister Britt will testify.
How do I handle it when they want something they see in the aisles and they aren’t going to get it? Well, you can just say no, and then replay a Twilight scene in your head (The Meadow, Italy, Esme’s Isle, repeat). Or you can lie. I have just decided that it is ok to lie to preschoolers. “No, we already have it at home.” “No, you won’t like it, it is yucky.” It works for me.
Now, you must remember that you have absolutely no control over the rest of the grocery store. I think this is where mommies lose it. There are going to be other people that either never had children or forgot what it was like to have children and they can’t wait for you to move out of their way. You are also going to hear some robot of a woman tell her kids something like, "We dont act that way, do we?" Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them. This is hard, and I don’t always follow my own advice.
Checking out is usually when we have the most fun. I have been known to get in line behind people who pay for something in pennies and hold up a line as the cashier counts them out. This grocery store in CT has a coin system where you get discounts on items when you turn your coins in. That means I have to keep up with the coins or dig through Vera looking for them while the line gets longer. Does anyone else unload the cart and realize things were at the bottom that weren’t scanned or that your son is holding something he randomly pulled off a shelf without your knowledge? Like a cup of ramen noodle soup? I am sure if I add up all that has been accidentally taken and subtract the number from the bags I accidentally left behind; the numbers would come out even.
It is not easy for any mom to load up the cart and the kids and find the car and unload the groceries and make sure all three kids are buckled. Plus she has to make sure the cart doesn’t go flying across the parking lot or that the kids don’t climb out of their seats and run away, or worse take the baby’s passy and hide it. We all do this all the time. I am not writing anything anyone doesn’t already know.
This is where my last straw comes in. I had a great trip to the store three days ago. No melt downs, no accidents, and I did fine checking out. I had four silver coins and ended up saving nineteen dollars total. Then they started screaming over what they were going to listen to in the car. I know, only in America do children fight over the CD in the car, but still, this is my story.
I get to the car and manage to hold on to the “fire truck” cart with all three kids and all the groceries. I get the baby, and the two screaming children inside. I did this all one handed to keep the cart from rolling away. Kenneth is jumping in and out of his seat, Frances is screaming “I want my daddy!” because he would let her listen to whatever she wanted, and then I try to throw bags in the trunk. This is a typical mommy trip to the grocery store.
THEN…I hear a voice behind me. “Excuse me. You dropped this.” I was thinking, oh how nice. Someone sees me with these kids and these groceries and is helping me. I turn around and he hands me a tissue. A TISSUE! The kids are screaming, the groceries are everywhere, and I am holding on to the fire truck cart so it won’t fly away and this guy hands me a tissue. THEN he says, “It’s wrong to throw trash on the ground. Don’t do it again.” and he walks off.
I was frozen in my place. I kept waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a car and tell me I was Punk’d. I promise all of you right now that I had no idea that the clean tissue had fallen out of my jacket or wherever. I was not trying to litter. The town of Guilford thanks him for telling me off. I am not blaming this incident on the north. There are jerks all over this great country of ours.
Like I said, a grocery store note is nothing new. Everyone has these days. When you are having a day, I hope all of you go out of your way to throw trash on the ground in the process. You know we have time to make those plans. How else are we going to entertain ourselves? Oh yeah, The Imagination Movers….
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