Saturday Shopping

[ 2 ] March 29, 2009 | Amanda

Yesterday I had a hat thrust back upon my head that I haven’t had to wear in a long time – single parent. Sure my husband has been TDY for a week since taking this new job, but he was home for the weekends. I only had to navigate the weekdays where after my oldest gets home from school, there isn’t much time before we do the dinner, baths, and bed routine. Yesterday I got a glimpse of what Spring Break is going to be like in a couple weeks. It seriously amazes me that more of us stay at home parents don’t drink before noon on a regular basis. I would seriously love to know what in our evolutionary process made us capable of handling kids 24/7 because I never in a million years pictured myself in this role back when I was fantasizing about my future when I was a kid.

But I digress. I took my boys shopping yesterday. We needed Claritin and Doritos. OK, so maybe we didn’t *need* the Doritos, but my boys (all of them) like to have them around to munch on. Before we got to the store with the things we were actually out to get, I wanted to stop by Marshalls and A.C Moore to see if they had anything cute for the flower beds in front of the house. Everyone does their yards up cute here, and now I feel obligated to as well. We got to Marshalls, and my 2yo screamed bloody murder as I tried to put him in a cart. I was pissed off, but we just left. Same thing happened at A.C. Moore. My ire is growing at this point. I should probably mention I started the day with a migraine that at this point is still a dull ache in my entire head, so his screaming isn’t helping. I already started this shopping trip with a low frustration threshold.

We headed across the parking lot to Walmart. The kid was in need of Claritin if any of us were to get any sleep. He screamed again with the cart. I’m not really sure where this sudden cart diversion is coming from. At this point, I had a not so proud parenting moment and told him to “just shut up and deal with it.” I know, great mom, huh? Finally the screaming stopped as we were walking into Walmart and he realized he’d been defeated. I’m so thankful for those cart returns. I grabbed a cart in the parking lot, so he got it out of his system before we got to the store. We got inside the store, and I swear there were no less than 3 screaming kids inside. My 7yo says, “I guess Aaron’s not the only one today.” We got our stuff and got out of there. The whole shopping experience left me worn out both physically and mentally, reminding me why I generally do NOT shop on Saturdays if I can avoid it.

And just a side note, when there are two parking spaces open right next to each other, DO NOT take the one next to a parent trying to put a kid in a car seat, then get all huffy because you had to back out and pull back in to try and park around the open door. Just take the other space next to it. And don’t give said parent a dirty look when they turn around to see just how close you are to the back of their legs while making your bonehead move. You don’t know what kind of hell that parent’s just been through, and they may be a ticking time bomb ready to rip you a new one for being a idiot. Just sayin’.

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1

Jenni Jiggety says:

March 29, 2009 at 8:30 pm

My boys don’t scream…but oh the whining…
2

Diane says:

March 29, 2009 at 10:58 pm

Sorry that you’re feeling that sell the kids moment. And I can’t even pretend to know how you feel. But I do know you (or feel I do) enough to know that no one should ever judge your parenting skills. I truly doubt I could do it. Maybe that’s why God decided I shouldn’t have em.

Hope the weekend went smoother for you. And if not, then I hope you had a bottle stashed away somewhere.