Oh, they look sweet and innocent, don't they?
Try taking them into a grocery store just once, however, and you'd quickly change your mind! Something about the lighting there suddenly transforms them into grocery store Gremlins.
Jericho, our oldest, who never even thought to beg for food items back in the days before his little brother was born, now spends half his time trying to wheedle a Lunchables out of me on shopping trips, hoping he'll luck out and catch me at an off-moment where I'll cave in to his whining. Which isn't likely since they don't meet my strict, nutritional criteria.
Judah, little octopus arms, reaches for everything in sight. Which is a lot. Because food companies spend untold billions of dollars on clever marketing strategies and colorful, kid-friendly packaging that just entices him to grab it and never let go, or to buck and whine from the confines of his stroller whenever I am forced to remove something from his grasp.
I had to resort to strapping him into a stroller for shopping trips, because when he used to ride shotgun on the cart (only after carefully sanitizing the handles with the wipe-ettes they provide in the entryway, I might add), I spent the majority of my time in grocery stores un-shopping. Putting all those things back that he tossed into the cart oh-so-helpfully, which usually necessitated several trips back through the store. Now, I don't have to retrace my steps as often, but I do have to vigilantly swerve the stroller out of reach of any and all displays.
Which generally works fine until you get to the check-out lanes. There, a mother's mettle is put to the ultimate test. The walls there are lined with row after colorfully-wrapped row of bubble gum and candy, all conveniently located where kids can and will rifle through it while mom is distracted by putting the groceries on the conveyor belt. Harried moms are forced to do the multi-tasking mambo, rifling through jam-packed purses for money while trying to keep older children from absorbing all the headlines and images from trashy tabloids, and keep the younger ones from getting into all that candy.
Candy companies know they have mom's over the ropes there, don't they? Because even if you say "No!", there is still the possibility that some candy could be inadvertently opened by curious little hands while you're otherwise distracted. Then mom's would be forced to buy it out of guilt. So there is always the chance that moms going through those lines with children are going to buy at least one thing.
Well, make that two, because by that time, most moms I know will want to reward themselves for enduring the trip through the store.
Sensible moms apparently go shopping solo. Or buy their groceries on Amazon.
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Because I'd already blogged about something else, the following image is my tribute to those folks that lost their lives in the tragic events of 9-11, the many families left behind, and our soldiers continuing to wage war against terrorism and the protection of our freedom. God Bless You...and God Bless America!
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Tonight at Bible Study, I asked the gal beside me what the date was. Immediately after I asked, I slapped my forehead with my palm, remembering. "Duh!" How could I have forgotten, when all day long I'd thought about it? Planned on blogging about it?
She chuckled and consoled me with a little story about how she was working in a corner coffee shop, and before filling his order, asked the man for his name so that she could write it on his cup.
"Jesus", he said, with the Spanish pronunciation of the name.
"How is that spelled?" she asked, then immediately remembered.
It happens to the best of us.
2 comments:
Those are two seriously cute boys you have there. Lordy but that brings back memories of shopping with my two boys. Lots of good memories though...they grow up so darn fast.
I remember the days when shopping was like this:
You got 4 kids clean, dressed, and shoed. This could be difficult as shoes quite often went missing and there usually was just one pair per kid. Things are so different now!
Then, you put all the kids in the car, without any help from the guy on the couch napping. Off you went to the grocery store and you spent a good hour or so buying the stuff you needed. Now here's the kicker. While shopping, none of my kids asked for anything or made a scene! That's because if they did, they had to stay home with the guy on the couch napping, or lose their treat when they went to the car afterwards. I learned this trick when you were a baby, Becky, because I knew that someday you'd be too big to argue with and because after I'd had the 4th baby, it was a matter of sheer survival. Now, I realize that I had 3 girls and one very Jericho-like son, so it wasn't the struggle you have. But you are right~~~the very things that make Judah the little scamp he is now may be the things that make him a totally wonderful man in his day, if he's guided properly. I mean, you never know, he may find a job where he's paid to make tattoos all over his body, or stand on his head in a restaurant after smacking a total stranger in the head with leftovers! Somebody may hire him to run through public places screaming, or lobbing anything handy against the walls. So don't be too hard on him, Its actually, in the long run, going to be a lot cuter in your memory as a two year old doing these things than a young man doing them. And nobody thinks twice about a little guy acting up in public, except maybe the lady in the hat. Did she have picante sauce dripping onto her shoulder, or frijoles mushed in her hair? Let's face it, she's never going to see you again, so who cares? I say she's probably got constand heartburn from having a sour attitude and face and her husband probably does too, just from being with her. So nyaa nyaa to the old bat.
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