To market, to market...

Shopping with kids....where do I begin?


Life has a way of developing masterful caveats, does she not?  Yes, life is a "she."  Why not?  She is infinitely defined, always changing her mind, and, in some disturbing way, it somehow feels like you put on her same ratty bathrobe every single day.  You can't outsmart her, you tediously plan for her and, yet, loops are thrown and hurdles jumped, admittedly quite clumsily, and she still demands more time, more energy, more money and more snacks, oh..and socks, or was it printer paper...?

So, you go to the store.

Interestingly, I've never found a "big box" establishment that suits my needs.  Ironic, says Alanis, because it is the very point of their existence!  Maybe that's why there are so many versions of the "big box," and yet, they are all so very much the same: vast parking lots of rolling asphalt where SUV's belly-up to the loading dock to secure pallets of Cheetos and Coca-Cola.

I would sell my soul in Rosedale, Mississippi if I could find the "big box" that could combine a Trader Joe's, Costco, TJMaxx and Target.  I would call it: Trader TarCoMaxx, and it would be great because I would have exclusive shopping hours, and wine and cheese samples, and super wide isles so the kiddos would stop driving their mini shopping carts into my Achilles.  Cashiers would not hand out stickers that become immediately adhered to my van windows, in fact, there would be a drop-off daycare.  (Then I could take the precious time to decide whether we were to eat our pasta with marinara, or if I was gonna go crazy and splurge on the gluten-free chicken meatballs.)

Enter the caveat...  By continuing to avoid bringing the children, you also avoid training them how to accompany you on an errand without behaving like some kind of mutant ninja puppy-chimp.   It's so much easier to independently glide throughout the store, inspecting the cooking directions for the gnocchi  and gently asking to be excused as you reach past a fellow shopper to grab asparagus bundled like obedient green soldiers.  OR...pack up the kids, take a deep breath and try to just get them through the sliding doors without resembling an over-sized, epileptic octopus.

They tend to scatter.  The more children you have, the more they scatter. One is always ahead, one is always behind and if you have enough, one goes right and one goes left.  I'm seriously not joking.  I tap into my organic-mother librarian voice and tell them ever so kindly to come back and stay with me.  "Look, Johnny (ok, none of my kids are named Johnny), you're in this kind gentleman's way."  They look around, dazed on re-entry into the world us mortals are standing in next to the refrigerated luncheon meat.  With opened mouth they glance at said gentleman and spin off in the other direction.

Perhaps you're thinking, "Get control, lady."  And, I would agree.  Once, I saw a mother of four commanding her way through the entire grocery store with each child holding onto a corner of her shopping cart.  I stood, mesmerized by the order and efficiency, and declared that we too shall follow the same course of decency! 

My children, however, felt it more effective to stand on the sides and be pushed around like "garbage men."  Yeah, they aim high... In the end, our version involved bickering over cart position and ultimately deteriorated when a disproportionate weight-to-cart ratio caused the cart to fall over in the middle of produce, apples rolling feverishly just to get away from the embarrassment.  That's when I employed my super low, intense voice and whispered commands like a creepy-calm psychopath with eyes like a wolf.

I have to be a wolf sometimes, because I don't think they are really born human.  They are trying to go feral and we dress them like little humans and try to take them out into the world and expose them to humanity.  This is when I feel for humanity...

I remember our mother taking us to the fabric store.  I don't know how long she was there at any given time, but I would guess about 3 hours a pop.  That's what it felt like to us, and I now know it felt like 16 to her.  Honestly, she kinda let us go into our natural state.  I think it was the only way she could concentrate.  We ran and rolled amongst bolts of fabric and imagined a world of clandestine operations.  We fingered through the large drawers of patterns and perused the ribbons and buttons and green Styrofoam craft balls.  I don't remember mom getting bent of shape very often when shopping, but this was also back in the day when you could park your kids in the car while you ran into the store, and we did spend a fair amount of time in the vehicle panting at the windows like a bunch of golden retrievers.

I have had a child lying on my chest while getting my teeth cleaned.  I've had to get up from a beautician's chair, hair clippings cascading to the floor, to re-seat a child gone astray.  I've taken a child, or children, with me to every OB/Gyn appointment from second pregnancy on.  They are with me most of the time because I feel like they should know how to navigate the waters of errands and appointments and learn to abide by someone else's time line or needs (without being plugged into an electronic device).

We've had a few embarrassing moments, or "behavioral learning opportunities."  But, to be fair, I have also had compliments from strangers, medical staff and waiters that my children are well-behaved.  And, therein lies the payoff, because what could be better than a great story about a toppled shopping cart and yet discover, one day, that they can be human after all?