I remember a time when I was single, that when I needed food, I would run over to Macey's. It would take me 5 minutes to get there and into the store where I would sling a small hand basket over my arm and 10 minutes and $20 later, I would have a weeks worth of groceries. Everything I needed in one store with a working shopping cart and someone to bag my groceries. The whole trip from my apartment to apartment door only took 20 minutes. Oh, what times I had...
Fast forward to today. I am on a strict cash budget in which every Wednesday, I go to the ATM and take x-amount of money out and that is all I have to spend for the week on everything, apart from utilities, other bills, etc. Then I take my cash and two small children and we spend the next two to three hours engaged in the shopping trip from h-e-double-hockey-sticks.
Just imagine: a young mother without much arm strength, hauling a 20 pound infant in a 10 pound infant carrier across a dangerous parking lot full of old people attempting to drive and park (o, help us) while trying to keep a preschooler from killing himself as he dashes ahead, all the while the mother is blinded by her hair as it whips across her face due to the cursed wind and to top it all off, her shoelace comes untied almost causing her to plow head-first into the pavement (all the while carrying the baby). THEN, after battling with the quarter-slot thing on the shopping cart, she elbows her way through ALDI (a super-cheap grocery store with only the bare bones of groceries - awesome prices though - just don't EVER buy their hot dogs...shudder...) which is full of old people who seem to think they're on holiday and loading pallets blocking half the aisles. Then after getting and bagging her own groceries, it's back across the parking, loading the groceries into the too-small trunk, and then back again to turn in the shopping cart and get the quarter back. Then back across the lot only to find that a mini-van has park 12 inches from the side of the car in which the baby seat is loaded into. This results in loading the baby in from the other side, causing the young (and by this time, losing it) mother to smash her knee on some cursed piece of plastic from one of the many car seats smashed in the back seat.
Then...yes that's right, it starts all over again at yet another grocery store to pick up the few things that she can't find at ALDI. Shopping carts, heavy babies, running preschoolers, wind and hair everywhere, check-out lines with slow, chatty checkers, more parking lots, stuffing groceries into small trunks, more hair...it's the stuff nightmares are made of.
By the time we get home, Rose is wet and hungry, I'm bruised and hungry and William is begging for food and about to pass out. This is our Wednesday ritual. This doesn't include all of the other little shopping trips to pick up random things at Target, holiday/birthday shopping and all of the other millions of errands moms have to run. I know what I want for Mother's Day; I want ONE week free of grocery shopping. I want Ryan to take the kids and go for me...that would be a true gift.
However horrible it all is, nothing is worse than taking two kids, a stroller, and pull-cart on the bus to do the shopping in downtown St. Louis - talk about REAL nightmares.
All this in the name of saving money. It's worth it right? Right?
4 comments:
Susan, wow you are so great at posting. I haven't checked blogs for a little while. I agree with you about using this as a journal.
That is my plan too. So I love blogging and the grandparents love it!
BTW, all cute pics. I love the chubby idenfical baby ones.
So to add to your "facebook poll"
I just got on facebook a few months back and I have to admit it took way too much of my time that first week. Now I check it about once a week or so. I actually loved contacting some of my really good friends and cousins I had lost contact with over the years. At least the ones I was close too. So that is fun.
what I hate is when people constantly send me a bunch of junk on facebook... join this group... accept this... take this test...yada yada yada... I have no spare time as it is people!
So there you have it. Yes, I use facebook. Yes I like it. In moderation. And yes it can be a huge waste of time if you get really sucked in to all its nonsense. I don't know if I'll keep the account for long though. I just refer close friends and family the blog.
Wow, what a ramble...
This is so funny, because I can relate! Every time I go alone with both kids I regret it ans promise to never do it again...but I always do. It is a miracle I have not lost Ava yet!:)
So funny, Susan. Have you ever been driving along and you notice the car in front of you seems to have no driver, just a bouf of hair that is steering wheel level? When little old ladies have to look under the steering wheel to see the road, they need to quite driving.
Good luck. Now that Rose is sitting, can she sit in the basket? It would be so nice just to lug a 20 pound baby only and not the 10 pound car seat too.
Susan,
I am having severe grocery shopping flashbacks. Grocery shopping with little one or any shopping for that matter with little ones is torture.
Hey I have an idea bring the kids here on Wednesdays while you go do your shopping. :)
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