The Grocery Store

Picture it: Poughkeepsie, January 2010 a young girl in a blue dress walks with her shopping cart...

I must be a glutton for punishment because 1. I decide to go to Stop and Shop with my two kids and 2. I allowed Olivia to go to the store dressed in her blue Cinderella outfit, wand included with her toy shopping cart. Let the games begin...



I have Liam in his car seat in my shopping cart (not cradled in the front of the cart- that just makes me nervous) and Liv has her baby doll sitting shotgun in her cart next to her magic wand, bag of gold fish and water cup. Thankfully it is mid week, mid day and the store is fairly empty and I only need a few things. We begin our shopping. At first fellow shoppers are smiling and saying, "how cute" until Olivia, who is busy looking all around plows her shopping cart into a display stand and packages of napkins go flying. I quickly hurry to pick them up when a store attendant comes to my aid. I apologize and explain that I figured it would keep her busy. The store attendant is looking back at me like I am a real genius. Thanks.





What did I get myself into...





We continue on. I remind Olivia that she needs to look forward, steer her cart and keep close to me. I go down the aisles picking up what I need while keeping one eye on Olivia. She continues to look around while pushing her cart and I have lost count of how many times she has hit into something. At one point she banged into the end of the aisle and the cart went crashing over, Olivia fell to the floor, the magic wand was ejected from the cart as were all the goldfish- flying in different directions and her water cup went rolling down the aisle. Thankfully her baby doll stayed securely in her cart. Now crying, I scoop her up, upright the cart, try to pick up as many goldfish as I can and stuff them in my pockets while nonchalantly sweeping the rest of them into a pile at the end of the aisle and grab her cup and wand. Of Course now she wants her snack but the goldfish have gone belly up so we head back to the snack aisle to avoid another tantrum. We finally make it to the checkout (after a trip to the bathroom, another roll over of her cart and several stops to empty her cart of things she so nicely picked out herself). Poor Liam, I think he is still in the cart, somewhere between the cat food and milk. I shuffle Olivia ahead of me and she asks to help put the groceries in bags. I agree but ask her to wait until I get the stuff out of the cart. As I am doing so, I see a store attendant come over to start bagging the groceries- NOOOOOO! Good God Man- I am so close to getting out of here without a tantrum. I quickly explain that my daughter likes to help bag the groceries- so he hands her a bag full of groceries to put in her cart. She looks at him and then at me....



crying ensues.





"mooommy I want to put the stuff in the bags".



"I know huni" as I give the attendant the evil eye.





Now Liam starts crying.



GREAT!



I start putting stuff down for Olivia to put in her bag while throwing stuff in bags and trying to then position those bags strategically in the cart so as not to suffocate Liam. $200! What the hell did I buy and did I even get anything on my list- Finally heading to the door and into the parking lot. I pick up Olivia and her cart and push my cart- well wouldn't you know it, right in the middle of the parking lot- I hit a bump and two of my bags on the bottom of the cart jump ship.



I should have just planned on ordering out for every meal for the next week.