Grocery Shopping

Even though it is much easier to shop without kids - in fact, as I remember it, there was one Mother's Day that I went grocery shopping alone and thought that that by itself was kind of a nice mother's day gift - I have fond memories of grocery shopping with them.  It's not just the kind elderly people making a fuss over them as babies and little toddlers.  It's the extra challenges of shopping with them - mundane as it is - that are memorable to me.

With Julia, I remember when she was too big a baby to sit in those infant seat things they attach to carts, but not strong enough to sit up by herself.  I'd try to shop with her in a Baby Bjorn and have to reach and pick up and put down everything from the side to avoid her flappy arms in front of me. . . . A few times when they fell asleep on the way to the grocery store, I put them in the stroller and tried to use that as my cart and the canvas bags I had brought as additional storage to carry items around.  Always wondered if someone thought I was trying to steal stuff by putting items directly into the bags. . . .  When Wes was in his early toddlerhood, he insisted on eating many of the things for purchase - I'd have fun reporting to Wayne the list of things Wes had eaten while shopping - animal crackers, a cheese stick, fruit snacks and a Danimals Yogurt - all in one outing!  Now he enough self-control to wait until we get home, but I still have to negotiate what I buy with him and I come home with more Oreos than I would otherwise.

If I shop with both Julia and Wes now, they like to hang off on either side and pretend to be garbage men throwing the food into the cart.  I get yelled at if I put an item directly into the cart.

Anyways, with Julia in school, Wes is my main shopping partner nowadays.  He's usually a very active participant, down to putting items onto the belt and bagging.  But today he was dead tired and slept through my transfer of him into the cart, throughout the entire shopping trip, and even after being put back into his carseat.  I didn't get to use my reusable bags because the bag of canvas bags I brought in turned out to be his resting pillow.  The nice cashier was taken with sleeping Wes and gave me my 50 cent discount on the bags anyway.