Further confirmation that I should shop alone
I packed up the kids today around 1pm to go shopping. I’ve been putting it off and we were down to our last can of frozen juice. Things get bad around here when we’re out of apple juice.
First we headed off to the bank to put our whopping check from our refinance into the bank. Which, sadly, will only go to pay off debt. Boo. Then we headed to Vitamin Cottage. Every time I feed my children a graham cracker, I feel like I’m sinning against my healthy upbringing, so I needed to get the kids some healthy, sugar free, whole grain snacks. Eden was very excited about the healthy bunny shaped mac and cheese. (And now you know what’s for lunch tomorrow.)
Being so close to Michaels, I just couldn’t resist. I mean, who could blame me? With on sale yarn right next door, how could I NOT go? Really. (Jim would say it’s part of my disease.) But, I will have you know, I did manage to keep myself out of Old Navy. It was hard, but I think I will recover.
At this point in the trip, things weren’t going that bad. I got the kids a fruit leather (all natural) at Vitamin Cottage and they were still digesting when we got into the car. And this is where I made my biggest mistake. We went to Evil Wal-Mart. Well, it was the point of the trip, to buy food, but still….Evil Wal-Mart at 1:30ish in the afternoon, I’m crazy. I would have been happy to go home and live off saltines for at least another 24 hours, I had new yarn. But one little whine from Honor reminded me that we were dangerously low on juice. So off we went to EVIL WAL-MART.
See, the problem with waiting till way past the last minute to grocery shop is that you have to marathon grocery shop. Since everything in the house has been eaten, including the yellow mustard, there’s a lot of shopping that needs to be done. Herein lies the problem….Honor can only sit still for about 2.4 seconds. We were at Evil Wal-Mart for over an hour. I pulled out every trick in the book and we were only on aisle 9. I finally stooped so low as to open the bag of raisins and that kept him at bay for 4 minutes. And I can officially say that it takes 4 whole minutes for a 1 year old boy to dump a whole box of raisins all over Evil Wal-Mart.
So somehow, through all the screaming and kicking in the Kid Fight Carts we managed to make it to the checkout line. The checkout line. Yeah. Where you’re supposed to check out, right? It’s more like the wait in line for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS line. Seriously, does Evil Wal-Mart hate me that much? I spent $163.00 there today, why would they do that to me? Why? WHY? How in the world do they expect two little children in kicking distance from each other to not scream? I wanted to scream.
Needless to say, from this day forward, I solemnly vow to ALWAYS shop alone. ALONE, I say.
Category: Kids, parenting struggles 10 comments »
December 2nd, 2004 at 6:09 pm
I don’t usually comment, though I read about your life most every day. Something deep within stirred today as I laughed and read. I don’t know why, but it does my heart good to hear of your shopping woes. It is sick I must admit, but some how I feel justice is being served because just twenty-one short years ago you and your sister were the screaming kids in the cart, and I was the crazed woman pushing the cart. Sick. But satisfying!
December 2nd, 2004 at 7:47 pm
You are one brave momma! I would have never been brave enough to try that to begin with. Kudos to you for giving it a shot though! You shall know better next time.
December 3rd, 2004 at 11:06 am
I see you your two kids in the KidFight cart, and I raise you one….I’ve got 5-yr-old twins PLUS a 2-yr-old. Someone always gets the poop end of the stick in the KidFight cart, and it’s usually one of my twins, who then proceeds to pay me back by grabbing every third item off the shelf. I get the same looks from the same “She can’t control her kids, hmph” people. I’m too busy repeating “Put it back, stop hitting, put it back, stop hitting, put it back, stop hitting…” to really care, although I do occassionally give them the You-Gotta-Problem? stare. ;)
December 3rd, 2004 at 1:18 pm
Although I know you had a rough day shopping, your story was so funny that it almost made me wish I had kids so I would have funny material to write about to. Their antics however bad in the store with give you laughter in the future… just like they did to me today!!
December 3rd, 2004 at 3:07 pm
This is kinda off topic, but sorta not. Anyway, my best friend’s son is exactly to the day a year older than Kaden. When we lived in Florida we used to switch baby-sitting each other’s kids, and when we weren’t busy doing something, we were together. So, they had brother/sister instincts. When I would have Taylor, 3 at the time, Corey, 18 months at the time, and Kaden 6 months, in the KidFight cart-I would get the stranges stares. Even when Stephanie was with me. See, picture two little blonde hair blue eyed kids, and then Corey, whose mother is black and dad is white. It was like people thought I made a mistake in the middle, and they were serious! People never sieze to amaze me…but it was a good laugh.
December 4th, 2004 at 12:55 am
Ehem….
It’s not your fault. It’s WALMART’s fault. I found myself in Walmart tonight and all I could think was “Do you people REALLY want customer’s ’cause I can’t even push my cart up and down these aisles their so cluttered!”
I have vowed to never, ever, ever ever EV-AH take my children grocery shopping with me again. I’m so sorry it happened to you.
XOXO!
December 4th, 2004 at 12:57 am
Ooops…”they’re so cluttered”, not “their”. I need to go to bed…
December 5th, 2004 at 7:20 pm
yes, shopping alone is almost pleasant after experiencing shopping with toddlers…and i only have one, but she’s enough to make a quick trip for groceries feellike a week at a corporate job, it’s so stress-inducing. i find that the food bribery thing is the key to my survival, as well as trying to plan my shopping around the slow times in the store if possible…but you knew that.
but it sure was funny reading about your walmart trip, even though i feel your pain.
December 10th, 2004 at 3:41 pm
From what I’ve read in your blog, you are an awesome mommy. I have 3 kids…13, 11, and 10 and I still remember the pain of those shopping trips you so lovingly describe :-). Bear in mind this fact: When Eden and Honor are older, you can lollygag on the magazine aisle for a bit while THEY go get the yogurt and the baby carrots! It gets so much easier.
December 14th, 2004 at 4:00 pm
Okay I thought I should share my nightmare with these hidious carts you all have been talking about! I hate them all, the car carts and the “fight carts” too! I will admitt, I am a weakling!!! I cannot push one of these monsterous suckers to save my life. Everytime I leave the store I vow never to let my kids ride in one ever again because it’s pure hell through the ENTIRE STORE!!! But last nights adventure topped them all with out a doubt. While Isaac was busy having pleasent conversation with all the people he found he knew inside of City Market, I of course was battleing with the hideous CAR CART. When I finally decided to go find Isaac to help me push this monsterous beast – I spun around knocking over – yes I said knocking over an entire holiday display of pears. They all came crashing down, rolling all over the produce floor while on lookers gave me the best pitty smiles that I’ve ever seen. I could tell by their faces that they were thinking -“Thankyou Lord that didn’t happen to me!” But I’m so glad for the nice man who works in the North Ave. City Market late at night because he picked them all up with me and kept reassuring me it was no big deal and that they were just pears. PLEASE JUST PEARS – IT WAS MY REPUTATION I WAS WORRIED ABOUT – LOL!