Today is Monday. In my world, that means it is grocery shopping day. It was quite busy in the grocery store today and I will say that without exception every person I passed by seemed to have an air of thankfulness. The gratitude was practically radiating off of each and every face I saw. Why the air of such thanksgiving? Glad you asked. They were all grateful that they weren't me. Yep, that's right. Grateful to be anyone but the crazy, frazzled mommy toting two screaming, yelling babies while attempting to purchase her weekly groceries.
What a crazy morning. Seriously, y'all. Unbelievable. Today I dared to attempt one of those car/shopping cart doohickey thingers (serious cool-point deduction for that one) in the hopes that my children would be happy for at least half of the shopping trip. See, sweet little Sarah has decided that sitting in the shopping cart seat is for the birds and refuses to do it any longer unless she is allowed to wail at the top of her lungs the entire time. She does, however, like to sit in the little car/cart and turn the wheel while beeping the horn. (did I mention how cool I look as this is going on?)
The problem is with big sister, Claire. This lovely little one who is usually content to walk beside the cart and help Mommy put things in the basket, now must, MUST also sit in the car/cart because . . . well, we can't let little sister have all the fun now can we? So I cram both little ones in the car compartment with barely an inch to spare on either side of them and all they do is fight, fight, fight. Actually, all Sarah does is react, react, react to Claire's need to pester the daylights out of her. So I separate them and end up with Sarah in the basket seat (which she hates) and Claire cruising alongside the cart because it is no longer fun to be in the car compartment without a little sister to pester.
For those who don't know, these carts have a significantly reduced basket space to make up for the clown car at the front. So now I have a small cart that won't hold my groceries, a screaming baby who doesn't want to be in the jump seat and a toddler who is crying because I took Sarah out of said car. Exhausted yet? Just wait.
So my grocery store is going through quite the renovation. This renovation will be wonderful once it is complete, but we are going on 3 months of construction and it gets worse by the day. I used to pride myself on my ability to get in and out of the store in 45 minutes with a full weeks worth of groceries and two happy children. I could accomplish this because I had a mental map of the store. I could organize my grocery list in the perfect order of where items were located in the store.
Now? Every time I go back, they've moved items to new homes. What was once near produce, is now WAAAAAAY over by the meats. All the makeup is now divided into three different aisles that, by the way, are not adjacent to one another. And because a majority of these moves are temporary, they haven't moved the signage above the aisles. You know, the signs that tell you what is on the aisle? Yep, those are wrong too. This is tough enough with a regular cart, but with one of those car/carts? Those things are near impossible to turn and when you find yourself forced to make hundreds of extra turns as you go back and forth through the store to find what has been moved for the eleventy-millionth time your patience starts to wear thin.
So after an hour and a half, (that's right) I was finally heading to the check-out lines (minus a few items that I just couldn't locate and decided weren't worth an extra lap or two around the store). Here is where it really got fun. Claire was back to her sweet helpful self and was taking items out of the cart and putting them on the conveyor belt. She grabbed a can of soup and managed to drop it right on her big toe. Ensue wailing. Actually, it was more like ear-splitting screaming. I did feel sorry for her, poor thing. I am sure her toe hurt, but it was a can of soup for crying out loud. (oh the irony of that statement) I kept repeating the Mommy Mantra, "Oh, you're alright. It's okay." as the crying intensified and the grateful looks on the faces of those around me multiplied with alarming speed.
We finally get checked out and to the parking lot. The car is loaded and Sarah is about to be freed from her torture seat when Claire declares through stifled sobs that she really, REALLY needs to go potty. I can see from her expression (not to mention the "tee tee dance") that she won't be able to wait until we get home, so I haul both kids back into the store. I am sure the employees are thinking, "NOOOOOOO! We just got rid of that crazy family!!!"
Fortunately I know where the potty is located because we have frequented this latrine on multiple occasions during Claire's potty training phase. Wanna guess what happened? Come on, take a wild guess. No, she didn't have an accident. Want to try again?
THEY MOVED THE BATHROOM!!! Actually, it was just closed for remodeling, but there was a sign on the door that informed me that I was now going to get to take my desperate duo into the bowels of the store. Back where only employees are allowed just so my precious one can relieve herself.
Eventually we got home. The groceries eventually got put away and the girls finally got to eat some lunch. I sat down with Claire for a moment and she told me that her toe still hurt. So I removed her shoe to inspect her big toe and found this:
End rant.
3 comments:
Oh Aims, what a tough morning. I don't know which store you're going to, but our HEB has double seats in the car carts with a full size cart. It's a little more trouble to move, but on those days when you need the car cart to survive maybe it will help. I hope. And, if you go there, the employees will never think you're the worst family to come through =).
Oh.. how I loved this grocery store story! This is probably one of the "best" ones ever! I do feel bad for Claire's toe and what a big girl she was to hold it while you ran around getting her to the bathroom. High Five for Aimee for not losing it! :o)
Oh, so sympathetic am I! I even frequent the same grocery store. I, too, have frequently run out of time and patience going round and round the store with double stroller + full-sized cart looking for those elusive items they've moved again. And apparently I keep leaving without the same few items every time because we recently ran out of certain necessary items and had no back-ups in stock! Sorry, hubby, your hair spikes just aren't worth spoiled milk, wilted lettuce, screaming twins and my sanity! BYOG! (buy your own gel)
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