Grocery Shopping: A Learning Experience

Here are a few things I learned while grocery shopping Friday night.

1. A half-hour bedtime is not a good time to take your children grocery shopping.

2. "Hold on to the cart," to a 3-year old, means run wildly through the store and ignore any of mommy's pleas to behave.

3. A 3-year old child will let you know a thousand times over what he wants or does not want in the store but does not care what you want.

4. While approaching the check-out line and double checking your list, the one item that you missed will undoubtedly be on the opposite side of the store, causing you to drag - literally drag - your 3-year old because he has decided that his legs should no longer have to carry his weight, and there is no more room in the cart for his now unable body.

5. Even though your checker is physically unable to scan items at a rate any faster than 1 per 40.3 seconds, the people in line behind you will watch your 3-year old whine and throw tantrums and give you dirty looks because obviously it is his carrying on that is making them wait in line.

6. Your checker will know exactly what is causing your child's fit and know exactly how to fix it because she "watches kids a lot." And if you're lucky, she'll let you in on the secret that your child is probably tired.

7. When strapping your 7-month old in to the car seat, she will make the first noise she's made all night and your 3-year old with immediately "shush" her and then look at you with pride because he knows he's saving you from having to listen to her complaints.

8. If your 3-year old brings a toy with him and realizes that he has left it in the car before you even went in the store, you should have just gone back and got the damn thing and then you probably could have avoided lessons 1-7.

9. It's a good thing I blog because as I was driving home the only thing that kept me from driving my car into the river was thinking about that day's previous post.