Take three kids to the grocery store at once. Right. Haven’t done that in over a year. I mean, call me spoiled… or call me SMART. But it’s been well over a year since we took our kids grocery shopping. Usually one of us goes out sans children to complete to fortuitous task of stocking our pantry.
It’s actually quite the coveted job in this house, because of the blissful silence of label reading and aisle strolling whilst the other sorry parent (or uncle in last year’s case) gets to be a human jungle gym for an hour.
But no. Not today. Today I took the kids up to choir and because of the success of one event, stupidly decided to just ‘run into’ the grocery store and ‘pick up some stuff’ for dinner. I let myself be duped into thinking the most DANGEROUS THOUGHT for a mom, “I got this“. (head up to all my mommy friends : you never get it. ever.)
We needed three things: bread, salad, and eggs. How hard could that really be? Three things. Three kids. So I wouldn’t need a cart. I ran through the rules and loaded out the stakes, early bedtimes if I lost someone from wandering off, etc.
I scooped Charlie, 3, out of his car seat and inquired
‘Would you like to walk?’
Which translates in toddler-speak to ” Do you want me to chase you around the grocery store?”
Of course he said yes. And I fat, dumb, and happy obliged.
It took me about 10 minutes to realize the terror I had unleashed upon myself. I was in the produce section, picking up the lettuce when he and Jack started wrestling each other near the glass jars of garlic. Hmmm, I believe 1 billion is the amount of times I had to wrangle the two of them off of one another and hiss through my teeth,
“Knock it off!”
I kept dodging other customers and looking around all squirley hoping no other people would tisk at my lack of control. I gripped Charlie’s hand tighter and started stomping off to find the bread, commanding Jack to ‘march in front where I can see you” and feeling Mia trailing along hanging onto my other shirt sleeve.
Rounding a corner, and surrounded by a gaggle of customers in the deli line, Jack announced clear as a bell,
“Look Mom! It’s your favorite! Wine!”
NOOOO I cringed outwardly and inwardly. SHUT UP.
Of course, as you all know, ignoring a child only makes them talk louder. Especially when you really don’t want them to. Especially when you already looked like you couldn’t pull your life together.
“MOM!” (louder) “MOOOMMM” (pointing, louder) ” Wine! Look! YOUR FAVORITE!!”
And so, because I did not know how to react to the fact that I keep one measly bottle of wine on my counter, and apparently this is how my kid sees me… I giggled out loud correcting him,
“You’re so silly. That’s not Mommy’s favorite!”
Which in mommy language means
“Pipe down you nut. I don’t need people thinking less of me than they already do!”
I’m sure not one single person on that deli lined believed me. And if they followed me the rest of my trip, they might go pour me a glass themselves.
Because the rest of our ‘quick trip’, which in actuality lasted over a half hour, I was chasing Charlie, juggling eggs, putting items back on the shelves, yanking heads out of the bakery baskets of bread ( “c’mere Mia!! Smell this bread! Oh I wish we had this bread!” —– ” Oh so that lady can’t afford to buy her kids bread but she can buy wine. Tisk Tisk“)
Then. THEN. I made the crowing glory choice of the whole trip. I said,
” Hey. You’re not frazzled enough. You deserve to go through self-checkout”
HA HAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (ETC.)
I’m such an idiot.
Because our self-checkout station was right next to a big, shiny, silver trashcan. Transaltion in boy : “Yum and Fun” And I had two ridiculously rambunctious boys in tow. And Charlie had been walking, holding my hand, but dropping to his knees every 2 feet of our trek up to self checkout. So I was in a GREAT mood by the time we got up there.
You know how with self-checkout, you have to scan the item then place in bag. But if you put too much in the bag or hang on the bag holder thingy, or sit on the bag holder thingy, or breathe near the bag holder thingy the whole register shuts down and says ‘Please wait for assistance’.
Yeah.
It was a really, really long check out process. A lot of
“Stop! Stop pressing on that! It’s reading your weight and throwing off the bags! They think we’re stealing!”
and
“Get away from the trash. We don’t touch trashcans”
and
“Stop licking that! WHYYYYY WHY ARE YOU LICKING THAT”
and
“STOP TOUCHING THE TRASHCAN DOOR”
and
“YUCKY! YUCKY! WHAT THE?!! WHY ARE YOU STICKING YOUR FINGERS IN THE TRASH??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUUUUUUUU?????”
Yep. Never doing that again. Yep, I have a serious headache.
And yep, I’m writing this all down for you right now while sipping a glass of my favorite.
