Sunday, 03 January 2010

• The Grocery Store Diaries 6

  Dirty Looks: three, all in the parking lot on the way home.
  

  "You've got your hands full": none that I heard
  Damage Control: Well, the baby discovered that tic tacs shake better than maracas....
  
  The Grocery store is the ultimate fast food restaurant for little people. I know that you aren't supposed to grocery shop hungry. I know that furthermore, you should not take hungry children to a grocery store. And I don't, at least I don't think I do. I have also learned something from Bill Nye and Sid the Science Kid. Sharks are always hungry, and so are my children.  
  
  The baby starts screaming the minute bananas hit the cart. He points and cries and wants to eat one of his favorite snacks. I have dealt with this before with a yogurt cup. He got that open and I didn't fight him, but I didn't want to open a banana in the middle of the store. So I let him cry. Sort of.  

  
  
  The next thing I know, a box of cookies has mysteriously been opened and the boys are munching happily and quietly. My daughter is skipping beside me eating grapes out of the bag. I have to stop her because those are going to be weighed, it isn't like a package of cookies with a ISBN bar to scan.
  
  THEN they start asking what they can eat on the car ride home.
  "Let's open the chips in the car."
  "No, I want a pop sicle on the way home."
  "How about a banana then, mom?"
  "Is there a way we can make the macaroni and cheese in the car?"
  
  OK, enough. If I give in to the three of them, by the time we get home we will have to turn around and go back to the store. There won't be anything left in the bags to unload. So I tell them no.
  
  My three angels smiled at me and said, "OK mom, you are right. It isn't nutritious, it will spoil our dinner, and then if we wait until we are home to eat, Daddy won't have to vacuum all the crumbs out of the backseat on Saturday morning when he could be relaxing."
  
  Who just believed that?
  
  They scream and cry all the way to the car because the Pilot is not an a la carte cafeteria. People think I'm hurting my children.
  
  If anyone ever wondered why I drink coffee all morning and diet coke all afternoon, now you know!