Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A moment of insanity . . .

okay not a moment but two hours of insanity. I have taken my four children to the grocery store before. Actually several times but thinking about it after the fact I realized never have I, alone, taken ALL of them to buy a week's worth of food. I've taken all four them to buy a "few things" or a few of them to buy all the groceries and in either scenario that usually goes okay. So in my lapse of saneness I took them in and we had to get the grocery cart that looks like a pick up truck because I wasn't chasing Runaway Boy up and down the aisles during the entire trip. I can buckle him in the truck and then Addison and Caden take turns sitting in the truck with him. Only thing is the truck is really not like driving a normal cart maybe more in the order of driving a real 18 wheeler semi, I think. It's heavy with 3 people in it. The baby's car carrier blocks part of my view and then the "walker" feels the need to be in front of the cart at all times. The walker also has difficulty in either keeping up with me or being a whole aisle ahead. So I am constantly yelling to keep up or get back here. The two riders are doing God knows what in those seats but they laugh and giggle until someone starts crying or a man tells me "she's squishing the devil out of her brother (please no one can squish the devil out of Ethan)" At one point Caden is doing a "bear walk" in the middle of the aisle. Ethan's shoes were taken off in aisle 3. Then in the fourth aisle Caden announces he must use the bathroom NOW! So off I go to take all 4 of them in the public restroom while they are holding the free cookies. Yum! Yum! Then back to trek across the store where we left off. I tried to write my list in order of the aisles because I hate to go back once you forget something . . . it's worse with the semi cart that gets heavier and heavier as we go. Things began to fall off the bottom rack. Then in the dairy aisle I look at Ethan and he's missing his shirt (remember he has no shoes either). He decided to "Hulk up" and ditched his shirt. Luckily I could see it so I sent Caden back to get it and he decided to run in Hulk slow motion the whole way there and back. Then in the baby/pet aisle some lady and her mom were contemplating birdseed for about 8 minutes. Their cart blocked one part of the aisle and they blocked the other part. They had to know we were their patiently waiting, after all how quiet can 4 kids and their stressed out mom be? Even so, they took their time to get just the right birdseed and carefully to place it perfectly on their cart. You're welcome, birds! It was in the bread aisle that I realized I forgot 2 things way back and there was no way I was fitting my lifeline Mountain Dew on this cart, no way, no how. So I decided we're checking out with 75% of the list done. Ethan screamed/cried during the long process of checking out because he saw the goldfish crackers and kept telling everyone "GIVE BACK CRACKERS! MY CRACKERS!" Most moms would just open them to keep him quiet, not this mom, not on this day! I paid and then we had to switch to a regular cart to get out the door because you can't take the semi cart to the parking lot -- you know, someone may just steal it because it would fit in just about any car well, maybe a semi truck. I love my grocery store because you can drive up and they will help you load the groceries in your car (I was thinking can't they help load up the kids too). I asked the man if I lot of people took advantage of their online shopping service where you order via internet for an extra $5, and pick up your groceries. He said many do. $5 is worth two plus hours of my time and all the stress of taking them to the store. So I'm off to check it out and I'm pretty sure therapy costs more than $5 a week!

1 comment:

DeWitt Family said...

Love your description of the carts all kids have to ride in. My husband hates going to Hy-Vee with me because he knows I will take the "Police Car" for Preston. We embarrass Matt. I also drive it extra fast when Matt is there so it rumbles through the store! I have a hit a few things as well, not on purpose, but you can not control those things! I find it funny and if brightens Preston's shopping experience, Bring on the stare's!