Grocery store antics

I hate to take all three of my kids with me to the grocery store. With one it's manageable. You can entertain them while you shop and make the visit a learning experience. For example with my five year old, we count the number of steps it takes us to get to the end of the aisle. Or we find the cereal with a red box. You know fun games like that to keep him entertained so that he doesn't scale the shelves or get away and hide behind the display of jumbo rolls of paper towels only to make my heart flip flop when I don't see him (trust me I have reason to be afraid). With my 8 year old, we compare prices. Like which can of beans cost less. Or which pack of bologna is on sale (like he really cares but it makes me feel like I am teaching him something).With my 12 year old, I can send her to pick up stuff that I have forgotten (however, this isn't working so well because about half the time she returns with the wrong thing). Or we talk about different foods and ways to use them in recipes (she's beginning to get interested in cooking and I hope to encourage her so I don't have to cook).

Going with all three usually spells disaster so I try to schedule my grocery store visits on the weekends when I can go alone or when I only have one child. Today however, I was not able to get to the grocery store before they got out of school so we had to make a quick run to pick up milk and snacks for our weekend trip.

After coming in the store, they headed straight for the free cookie bin which I hate for two big reasons:

1) It really grosses me out to think what has touched those cookies and
2) By the end of the trip they are all sugared up and bouncing off the walls.

But in order to keep the peace for at least part of the trip, I let them have one (but occasionally they will take two with the premise that they have gotten one for me all the while knowing I wouldn't eat those things).

I had a list and was throwing snack food (i.e. things that they never get at home) into the buggy. They weren't whining and begging for stuff because I was actually getting them the things they whine and beg for.

The sugar apparently started to kick in and the boys decided it would be fun to race at top speed down the aisle. So to avoid them knocking over anyone or anything, I put Harrison in the cart. After all racing is not much fun with one.

Haley was pushing the cart (with Harrison in the back) so I could throw faster and we could get out of there. I warned her once about going to fast and she slowed down. But I apparently did not cover all the bases and failed to warn Holden not to climb on the side of the cart while Haley was turning it around (who would have thought?). Out of the corner of my eye, I see the cart starting to tip and Holden tripping backwards. Haley righted the cart just in time. And as I turned around, I saw a whole display of Heineken beer go crashing to the ground.

Now thankfully they were in cardboard boxes and only one whole case broke. But Holden knew he was about to get in trouble and he immediately started saying over and over, "I'm sorry". Fortunately for him, they report child abuser's.

The next best thing to a spanking is to torture them by making them go and tell the manager that they knocked over a display. Of course, he never made it to the front because the noise of the display crashing had alerted someone to the fact that there might be a clean-up needed on aisle 8. So here comes a lady with a huge orange triangle to warn customers to avoid that area. I think perhaps I need a few of those at home.

So after threatening to leave Holden at the store to work off the cost of the beer, we head home. Things got a little quieter after that. Guess they knew not to cause anymore confusion tonight. Good thing.