Weekly trip to the grocery store

I love my children. But I don’t look forward to going to the grocery store with them. We have been running extremely low on food all week. I was planning to go to the grocery store on Tuesday, but luckily, procrastination is one of my amazing talents. By today, I couldn’t wait any longer. Even worse, I had waited so long, we had a huge list of groceries to buy.

I packed up the kids, and took off for the store. The first thing I did was buy them popcorn chicken and a drink, in hopes of keeping them entertained. Then I set off to shop quickly while they were preoccupied with food and beverage. I’m so good at this that I can even ignore the looks that other people give me.

Yes, that is my one-year-old chugging a bottle of strawberry Gatorade. What of it?!

By the time we got to the macaroni and cheese aisle, things were quickly going down hill. Georgia thinks it is fun to start her high-piercing shrill. I believe I’ve mentioned this before – the sound I equate to the emergency broadcast system, remember?

As Georgia is imitating a tornado siren, Eli starts to mimic her. I am now in the middle of Wal-Mart grocery store subtlely trying to cover my children’s mouths as the people around us cover their ears. I plugged Georgia up with another bottle of Gatorade, and threatened Eli with no “extra.” (He always gets an extra at the store if he is good – today it was a plastic green cup with a built-in straw.)

I also need to control the comments I make to the children. I have always had a habit of talking to my children as if they were adults. Eli has a great vocabulary, and a growing knowledge of sarcasm. But again, I get looks from other people. For example, during the alarm noises, I said, “Would you two stop?! You’re going to drive mommy to drink!” Shocked look from the woman passing me in the aisle. Eli just laughed, and said, “Oh mommy! No we’re not.” My sweet boy – he gets me.

This reminds me of a story I have to share. Yesterday on the news, there was a story of a woman here in town who was found slumped over the wheel of her car with her 4-year-old and 1-year-old in the back seat. She was drunk. My mother-in-law called me and said, “I heard this story on the news, and I was just waiting for them to say it was you!”

What?! I realize I get stressed, but I’m not that bad. She was quick to tell me she was kidding. Eric thought that was extremely funny. His comment – “Well, you do enjoy your wine.”

Humph!

Anyway, after we were almost wrapped up at the grocery store, we were in the middle of frozen foods when Eli screamed, “Mommy! I have to GO! NOW!!” I looked at him, and he was dancing around grabbing his crotch. Oh crap.

I said, “Okay, let’s run!” Off we raced to the potty. We made it just in time. I got Eli on the potty right as he let loose. Now, when Eli is with me, I usually sit him on the potty. I know all the men (including my husband) think this is wrong, but I’m sorry, that’s how I know how to do it. The only problem with this is that Eli has a strong talent for peeing right through that little crack between the toilet seat and the toilet and soaking his pants. So, I have a song that I sing when he is going to the potty. I won’t go into the full rendition, but the chorus is “Point that penis doooooown!”

I was singing this as an older woman walked into the restroom. I think it was the same one who heard me tell the children they were driving me to drink. She took one look at me and turned around and walked out. *sigh* It’s hard being a supermom.