Best Advice Ever

Taking my children to the grocery store can make even the most calm, saintly person leave, wanting to find something, someone, anything, and kick it. Knowing that kids have little patience, and no interest in anything non-toy related, I make my grocery list ahead of time. It’s organized by isle, cutting the chances of a dual-child meltdown, and I make sure we go first thing in the morning, ensuring no waiting in lines, and a quick check out.

Three quarters of the way through our order, Jordan started crying. It wasn’t anything to be alarmed about. So, I did the usual. I tried talking to him, singing the ABC’s, and finally, making ridiculous faces which accomplished nothing but diminish my self worth.

As we made our way through the frozen foods, I quickly realized that Jordan was becomming more frantic. I continued through the isle in a brisk jog, while Dylan hung on to the front of the cart. When I stopped briefly to grab some frozen raviolis, Dylan informs me of how much he really had to poop. Jordan was now in full screaming mode. The veins on the side of his neck were bulging. All hopes of calming him were clearly lost.

When we rounded the corner, heading into the bread and dairy isle, I watched as the bread delivery man, who was stocking the shelves and had obviously heard us coming, leapt out of our way. Smart man. Smart, smart, smart. He knew.

Unfortunately, the woman at the end of the dairy isle didn’t. I could feel it coming. I had seen her from across the shredded cheese. She was already waving at the kids. I tried my best to avoid a meeting, but she cornered me by the yogurts. As I scooped up a 16 pack of snack size yogurts, this woman began her attempt in calming the beast. She started out with the classic “peek-a-boo” move. Realizing that it would take much more than that, she pulled out what she thought was her trump card. In, what I assume is her best, varying-pitch baby voice, she says to Jordan: “Whasssaaamaaatterrrrr? Do you want to get out of that mean, old cart? Yes you do! Is Mommy pinching you?”

God love her. She was trying. The problem was, though, that she was merely prolonging the time I had to spend in this refrigerated hell, listening to my sweet child wail at the top of his lungs. I’m sure she is a very lovely woman. I’m sure she’s the kind of woman who buys a box of Thin Mints every year from the little girl next door, and happily makes “her special dish” for her scrapbooking club’s party each April. Lovely woman, really.

As I tried to politely walk away from her with Dylan (still having to poop), and Jordan (still….well you know), I was thanking her for her very valiant tries. But behind my pasted on smile and telling my children to wave, the only thing I could think of, was: How hard would I have to throw this buy-one-get-one-free, 12 oz. block of Oscar Meyer bologna at her to make her stop?

Pretty hard, I bet. Underneath it all, this lady looked fairly tough. Lovely, but tough.

In a full sprint, we made it to the registers before Jordan’s head started to spin 360 degrees. While I was busy hurling our food onto the belt, Dylan thought he would help. Faster than I could discourage him from helping, he had already picked up a jar. Before I knew it, there was sticky, purple, grape jelly splattered all over the floor, the cart, and my leg.

It was at this very moment that Jordan stopped crying.

Poor Dylan felt horrible about the jelly and instantly bent down to start cleaning up the mess. I quickly reached down, and snatched his hand up before he touched the broken glass. In that split second, it was perfectly quiet in the store. Everyone had heard the smash of glass, and turned to see what it was. It was quiet enough that when Dylan bent down to pick up the pieces, all we all heard was a huge “Pppppfffffftttttt!”

Dylan stands up quickly, eyes as wide as saucers, grabs his ass, and says, “Oh, Mama! I’m telling you, the poop wants to come out right now!”

Eventually, we got out of there, we got home, and yes, Dylan got to the bathroom in time. Phew.

I’ve decided that I will be going to the store at night, once Mark comes home from work.

All.

By.

Myself.

So, take this as advice (already known by the bread guy) and best said by Chicago:

“But if you see me walking by,
And the tears are in my eyes,
Look away, baby, look away.”