Erica is a the writer of No Sleep ’til College, and co-founder of Socially Speaking Media and never gets enough sleep. Follow her on Twitter.
They were both screaming as they sat in little pink car into which I’d wrangled their little bodies. They were so sweet at the time, excited for their little adventure. Now, I could barely keep them strapped in the damn thing without yelling and/or bribing with treats to keep them calm – slash- sugared up.
By all accounts, I should not have been at the grocery store.
It was a Friday night. I had full week of work that ended with a particularly challenging afternoon. I picked up my 2 and 4 year old from daycare at 5 and figured it would be okay to jet over to the grocery store for a few things we needed.
A few things.
If you’re single, or don’t have kids, or have never ventured to the grocery store with two kids, know this…there is no easy way to take two toddlers to the grocery store, or any store for that matter.
The idea of taking both kids to the grocery store sounds simple enough. And why should it not be? I should be able to round up my kids and whisk them away to complete a simple task. Millions of moms do it every day. It should be easy, right?
After finding one without bird crap, I wrestled each of them into one of those fire engine/grocery carts. If a bulky, hard-to-control grocery cart in the shape of a cartoon car would keep them happy, I was happy to oblige.
We made our way into the store, and {of course!} a few things slowly turned into a fewmore things than I had planned to pick up.
I was dumb to think I could spend more than 15 minutes in a grocery store without my kids going ballistic on me. But seeing as how it took me about 15 minutes to actually get inthe store, I wanted to make the most of the effort in getting there.
First came the complaining….
“I wanna go home! I’m hungry! I’m tired! This grocery store is boring!“
I was sort of able to tune this out, but then came the physical….
“He’s hitting me!” “She’s pulling my hair!” “He’s biting me!”
At home, I can separate them… give them a time out and tell them to chill out. But, here my resources were limited. I could feel the looks of strangers eying me down in the aisles…kinda being judgey, if I’m being honest about it.
So, I did what any normal parent would do. First, I began yelling talking loudly to them telling them to stop.
That didn’t work.
Then I began bribing them with what I am sure amounted to about $15 extra bucks of extra snacks and groceries I had to pick up along the way.
Still didn’t work.
It was at this point, that I learned my 2-year-old son could figure out how to unbuckle his safety strap in the cart. I know this because he did, and kept standing up in his seat and trying to get out and/or stage dive into the yogurt section. It wasn’t even the organic yogurt section. What the hell was wrong with him?
Yelling, bribing, promising we were almost done….it wasn’t enough.
Now, people are starting to “help” me. Well-meaning little old ladies warning me “he’s going to fall if he keeps standing up!” and people telling me, “You’ve really got your hands full!”
I am scowling at these biddies.
I am also trying to get the hell out of there while keeping my composure, and keeping my kids from breaking their heads open and/or killing each other, and trying not to freak out well-meaning customers who have no idea how much I am sweating trying to keep my kids under some sort of control.
I look like a hot mess. I am pretty sure child protective services will be waiting for us at the check out line.
Or someone is recording me and I am going to be the next “Bad Mom” viral video on YouTube. It’s this thought that makes me gain a bit of composure.
We get to the check out line…and I see the end in sight. Another well-meaning woman tells me to “watch it or he’ll fall and hurt himself” while pointing to my son who think he’s Evil Knievel.
“Yeah, I know,” I dismissively say to her, while bagging my groceries. “Maybe it will teach him a lesson.”
I’m already preparing my acceptance speech for “Parent of the Year.”
I’ve stopped going to the grocery store with my son. It was just so awful and we both came home angry with each other. And all the “well meaning” people who want to tell you what to do and how to parent in the grocery store is just too much.
Whenever i take my my son to Grocery store, he will start picking up things on his own and doesn’t listen to me. I have hard time controlling him in the store 🙂
I’ve actually seen attending the grocery store with only one child as, kind-of, a treat. And it was then that I realized just how fucked I am.
I’m dying laughing…this is so true. it should be easy but it’s stressful and leads to me crying on the way home. I hate shopping with my 3 kids so much I pay $99 a year for personal shopping. I order online and pick up my groceries. I don’t care about the cost, it is worth every single penny.
Ugh, going grocery shopping with my kids makes my head hurt. My son just wants to go home. My daughter wants to buy all the things. It’s just not pleasant.
I hate those car-grocery carts! They’re so awkward! But they’re the only thing you can fit twin toddlers in so its either use the dumb car or chase one child all over the store while the other howls from grocery cart captivity.