Yesterday (Friday) I jumped pretty high. It was a tall hurdle I overcame. What's the one place you least like to go, but is vital to your survival? You dislike going alone, and you dislike going with two children even more. Unless you grow your own food (one day!), the answer is the grocery store. I've been dreading the day when I had to go with both children--the day I couldn't make do with what we had and go later, or better yet, go later later LATER.
Friday was the appointed day to beat this animal down. And so I did. I blazed a path through that Kroger. I was moving so fast and focused that others with the same unfortunate luck to be grocery shopping probably only saw a blur. I became, in a brief moment, my own hero.
The steps leading to my success were as follows:
1) Feed baby at last possible moment before leaving. Get her nice and "milk drunk."
2) Once there, put baby in "magic sling" that always lulls her to sleep. Drunk and passed out--an essential combination.
3) Give Peyton the big responsibility of making sure my purse, which I put next to her in the grocery cart, didn't fall out. She rose to the challenge well and kept one hand on my purse at all times, as well as repeated her mission endlessly: "Make sure Mommy's purse doesn't fall out." And...again. And...again.
4) Have a SHORT list.
5) Let Peyton pick out everything: a toothbrush, a yogurt flavor, the bottle brush color, the kitty or princess bandaids, anything.
6) Negotiate. Yes, we negotiated with Kroger. See below.
The store had cute kiddie sized lawn chairs, the kind you fold up, slip in the bag, and take to the park. The price was good. The function was good. The look was even better. The stars had aligned! They had one frog or one monkey. Of course, Peyton got to choose. (See Step for Success #5 above.) Then came the negotiating. There was some grime on the chair's bag from sitting on top of the freezers. Nothing harmful, just yucky. So I got two dollars off the chair just for some dirt. A perfect little kid lawn chair for $5.99.
Now if only this mega-mom had had some mega coupons! Regardless, the Kroger employees are probably still cleaning up the burn marks left from my sprint around the store. Here is a picture of Peyton in her new chair.
You are a fantastic writer. I was laughing out loud! Congratulations on the grocery store accomplishment.
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