Now, grocery shopping days leave me frazzled, stressed, annoyed, exhausted and in an all around bad mood. So maybe it's not always that bad, but it sure is different than it used to be. I am amazed at all the mommies out there who seem to be able to get the job done so quickly. For me it's a minimum of three hours for a shopping trip with the girls. I know...it is embarrassing to admit. That time frame is with two stops, but it doesn't really make it any better. I must buy certain things at either Costco or Sam's Club (memberships compliments of family members, thank you) but I can't seem to buy everything I need there so it has to be two stores. I must walk around each store at least five times. Even when I write my list in the same order that the store aisles go in, I still forget something on the other side of the store. I spend a lot of energy worrying about forgetting something I need while I'm shopping. I should stop worrying because inevitably I do forget something, so I should just be used to that.
I wish I had a camera with me today, but I'm just lucky that I remembered both of my daughters, my wallet, AND the shopping list. Today it was HyVee and Sam's Club. I had every intention of leaving plenty early in order to be home for lunch and naps. Yep. I have every intention to do that every time. Rivers had her morning nap in her bunting (you know, those big hooded baby winter over-the-clothes bundling wintertime things) all wrapped up and seatbelted in her car seat. But the car seat didn't make it into the car and into the store before she woke up. There is always just one more thing to do before we go.
Cumorah do you have your shoes on? Mommy just has one more thing to do. OK, where are your shoes Cumorah I really just have one more thing to do. Where did I put the shopping list? Do you have to go potty? Are your shoes on yet? Mommy just has to do this one more thing and then we're going to go shopping. Where are your shoes? Put them on. I have to do ONE MORE THING.
So Rivers woke up and then I had to take her out of her car seat and her bunting to nurse her and then change her diaper, tell Cumorah I-really-mean-it-this-time-she-better-go-get-her-shoes, take Cumorah potty, put Rivers back in her bunting and back in the car seat, bundle Cumorah up, start the car and pull it out of the garage, drag the garbage and recycling cans back up the driveway since there is too much snow to put them elsewhere on the curb, grab a frozen crustless pb&j sandwich (that's embarrassing too, but it is my we're-going-out-and-need-a-lunch-NOW solution, no more than once a week), put the girls in the car and we're ready to go two minutes to noon. So much for being home in time for lunch and naps.
We hit HyVee first where any other normally functioning human being could have gotten in and out in fifteen minutes with a total of six things on their grocery list, we were in and out in an hour. Cumorah insisted we run to the potty first thing. I unashamedly drag the whole dang grocery cart into the bathroom with us and dare anyone there to make any sort of disparaging remarks. I used to be sort of timid and figure out how to make it work without the cart when I just had Cumorah. Have you ever tried to use a public restroom and hold a non-walking baby before? Not very easy. I should know. I'm not timid anymore. I don't want to even try and take a barely two-year-old potty and hold a baby. We walked around the produce section about five times because I kept forgetting to look for certain things. We took a few detours down aisles that we didn't need anything on for reasons unknown. When we were finally all done, Cumorah stood in the back of the cart and helped unload our selections onto the conveyor belt and then she ran over to Henry the (free-to-ride) Horse, joyously exclaiming, "Hawnry! Horse! I ride Hawnry!" The best part about our friendly neighborhood HyVee is that beautiful horse that has a big push button labeled START instead of a coin slot. Cumorah loves it. Even Rivers had a turn this time and smiled a lot, attracting even more attention from passerbys than did her cutie-pie big sister.
Next stop Sam's Club. Well, since we killed only an hour at HyVee then the we needed to spend at least two hours at Sam's Club to fulfill the three hour minimum time requirement. No problem. My darling daughter duo got to sit side-by-side in the oversized grocery cart with their new double grocery cart cover (thanks Grandmommy) and leave a trail of cheerios as we walked around the store and around again. If I made sure that their respective piles of Cheerios were replenished often, then I could keep them from stealing one anothers food. Whenever one started stealing the others snacks they both started squawking and pushing and laying on top of each other. When the Cheerios lost their appeal, I ended up giving Rivers a big section of fruit leather (the kind with just fruit and not the high fructose corn syrup) to suck on because she was flopping around screaming and whining and bugging her big sister. She made a HUGE STICKY mess, but she was very happy and most everyone else thought she was cute. Later she got a Ritz cracker from a sample booth. I think she thought she had died and gone to heaven with such a rich buttery, flaky treat. All the crumbs stuck to the sticky fruit layer covering her face and hands. It was then that I wanted my camera. I need to put Rivers' bunting and the grocery cart cover in the wash. With Rivers under control Cumorah was more well behaved. We bought a pretzel from the concession stand and asked for some cups of water since it was more wise to nurse Rivers again before she fell asleep in the car on our way home. Cumorah was having a ball eating pretzel, sipping water from a huge red straw three times as tall as her cup, and running around 'hiding' behind tables and things. She then informed me that she needed to go potty. So we risked the few minutes left before Rivers was quite done drinking her milk and we dragged that shopping cart into the restroom again. It was a little bit of a tight squeeze but we did it without any problems. When everyone was pottied and changed and washed, we bundled up and went out to the car to get buckled up and then I got the car packed up. Rivers fell asleep and is still asleep. Cumorah cried on the way home because we weren't going to do more shopping. She alternated between telling me that she was so tired and that she was not tired. She had to help me put the groceries away and have a story read to her before she went down for a very late nap that I'm about to wake her up from so that she will go to sleep tonight.
For those of you that must have pictures, here is Cumorah getting dressed this morning. She often picks clothes out to wear and she has been getting better at taking things off and putting things on, but today was the first day that she got everything out and put everything on. I was getting Rivers dressed and not paying very much attention to Cumorah. She started out in her jammies and then the next thing I knew, she pulled on my shirt and said, "Look Mommy, I naked." I looked, "Yep, you are naked." Then she asked me to open the closet door. So I did. When I was all done with Rivers, I turned around and Cumorah had her panties on (the right way) a leg warmer and her shirt. The rest of her clothes were on the ground waiting to go on. I got the camera to document the rest of her first 'I dress myself' days. Her choice of clothes wasn't so bad. I think it's really cute that she chose two shirts. We put long sleeves on under short sleeve shirts all the time in the winter, so that's what she picked out. Too funny. And then of course she had to choose her purple ghost socks. The only thing I ended up helping her with was her second shirt. She put it on backwards and also couldn't get it to pull down the right way. "Where the rwainbos? Too tight." She has two different rainbow shirts. I'm not sure what we're going to do when they don't fit anymore. Her rainbow shirts are her very favorite.
