Kids and Carts

I was looking back through some OLD writings today and stumbled upon this one, from circa 2009.  I still remember that night very well.  I thought it worth sharing.  I have revised it for the sake of my kids’ privacy - which they enjoy in increasing amounts as they get older.  For personal stories involving them I will be using the names of the four girls in my “Stanton Sisters” series of children’s stories - of whom were inspired by them in the first place.

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Kids and Grocery Carts offer the greatest rewards…

It’s Monday evening at 9:00 p.m. and I am just leaving the house to get groceries after getting Ellie to bed and then starting Tess’ bath, only to have to turn her over to her dad because she was putting up a sizable fight, and I had been doing battle with her since around 7:20 a.m.  I yell (over her screaming) that I’ll be back soon, and duck out.  I drive mindlessly to the store, all the while attempting to work out in my head what I could possibly do to have more peace in our house.  

I’ve read Dobson’s “The Strong Willed Child” and feel sure that he was spying in my windows while he scribbled the manuscript for that one.  The stories in those pages would be hilarious if they didn’t ring so true.  So step one has been completed, I have identified that my child falls squarely into the “strong-willed” category (which is likely to help her become successful as an adult, assuming that I can help her survive to see those days) and I have begun to implement methods learned from that glorious book in our very own house.  We have actually begun to see positive results in some areas.  

So now onto step two, how do I survive until she reaches adulthood?  I’m pretty sure that a few more days like this one and I’ll be dead.  More importantly, how do I maintain a healthy environment in our house for all of the members of our family, including Ellie, who can’t seem to understand what Tess is crying about but feels certain that something must be terribly wrong, and so chimes in as well.

Now I’ve reached the store.  I go inside, grab a cart and begin, mindlessly, to fill it.  Somewhere after aisle four I begin to realize that I have chosen a cart with a mind of its own, that is continually bearing left, despite my constant struggle to keep it on path.  It would seem that “lefty” here is determined to take out the entire canned goods section and then move on to frozen foods, leaving a wake of destruction, crying children, alarmed and banged-up shoppers, crashed carts, crushed toes and a bruise on my hip.  The harder I try to muscle the cart into a straight line the more it pulls back until it suddenly careens off to the right, damaging a few loaves of bread and my already sensitive state of mind.  By this point the irony of the situation is dawning on my sleepy brain (kids and carts must share a common goal, that is to defy authority and damage the un-expecting world around them), and the desire to get the groceries - in a timely manner - before I check out and go home, forces me stubbornly on with the rogue shopping rig rather than return for a properly functioning one.  That would take too much time.  (I’ve never had any doubt in my mind whose genetic material was responsible for Tess’ hard-head).  So with the collateral damage racking up behind me I trudge forward, filling the cart with the rest of the items on my list.  (Note: “Work smarter, not harder” failed when I tried to use weight distribution to counter-pull, so I believe that I can call this my workout for the night).  By the time that I reach the counter I am exhausted.  I check out and leave.

Thankfully, when I arrive at home I find that my wonderful husband has subdued the beast (who is patiently waiting in her bed for a good night kiss) and proceeds to carry in all of the groceries for me.  I spend a few minutes tucking her in and then I tackle the rest of the housework that was neglected all day in the crossfire of (hopefully) constructive discipline, and finally flop onto the pillow at 2:15 a.m.  

Now you ask, “WHAT!?!?!?  Where is the “reward” in that?”  And I tell you:

It’s Wednesday night at approximately…okay so I guess it’s Thursday morning now…but anyway…here I sit in a quiet house, with MOST of my housework for the day done, and I am able to smile as I think of Tess’ breakfast this morning, when we did our “Bibo Study” and she could recite the two verses that we’ve been working on.  And of the ‘dog houses’ (forts to play in) that we built with the couch cushions.  And of wrapping her cousin’s birthday gift together.  And of the nearly three happy hours that she played with her cousins without incident.  And of her help setting the table, and picking up her messes, and playing with Ellie.  And of the few moments that we had together today to just sit.  And of her picture that she so proudly displayed when she returned from night church with Daddy.  And of her stories at bedtime.  And of her bedtime prayer, that ended “and thank you for my buddy Daddy.”  I know what I’ll say “thank you” for tonight.  My job has a purpose, and it will be worth it in the end.

As for the grocery cart, well now I can look forward to round 2. *DING*