As a mom of two, I avoid taking my children anywhere that is not necessary. It is rare that you'll see me pushing a cart with both of them in it into any store. I'd much rather sneak my shopping in when they're sleeping or home with daddy or Grammie. I do it at the most awkward times of course.
The late night deli counter people probably hate me at Price Chopper because I grocery shop after the kids are in bed. This means I get there around 8:45 (Em is usually asleep by 8 and then it takes me 30 minutes to write the list and gather the coupons!). The deli closes at 9 so they're always cleaning up and I know they hate it when I ask for a million things right before they close. Obviously they have no idea what it would be like if I was carting around two kids with me!
I love late night grocery shopping though. There's always parking available and no one is in the store! I take my sweet time wandering aimlessly through the aisles. I stop at the apples and whip out my phone to calculate if its cheaper to buy the individual apples or the bag. I look over all of the meat to see which one "looks" the best (really they all look the same...). My favorite is the ice cream aisle. I could spend hours there. First it's deciding if we really need ice cream (we're suppose to be on diets). I always decide that we need it. Then it's what flavor to get and what brand. I always feel good after I leave the ice cream aisle....
I take my time picking out what I want too. I'm the girl who stands there and reads all of the labels. Did you know that fruit snacks really don't have fruit in them? The first two ingredients are sugar and high fructose corn syrup! They really should call them sugar snacks. You'd be amazed at the things they put into foods that kids love. My poor kids are going to be the losers at the lunch table with whole fruit in their bags and no fruit snacks! I once read a juice label that said "less sugar". The first ingredient was water. Of course if you water it down it has less sugar. I can do that at my house for free and not pay an additional dollar for it.
Well eventually I do have to check out. I like to pretend that the lady at the check out analyzes all of her customers and thinks "wow, what a good mom" and "that lady with the organic romaine and natural peanut butter must really have healthy kids" when I come through the line. Really she's probably thinking "only 5 more minutes until my break"....but hey I can dream right? Maybe think for a minute that my hour at the grocery store wasn't just to keep me sane but to nourish my family as well and then not feel so bad that I'd been gone for so long.
When I get home half the time Aiden has woken up and has been screaming for the past half hour and Emma never actually feel asleep and the chaos begins all over again. But hey that hour at the grocery store was really great. Looking forward to doing it again next week!
From the mouth of Emma:
Me: "Emma you should put your shoes on. I don't want you walking around in bare feet."
Emma: "Mommy, I don't have bears feet. See my toes?"
