“The Lecture“ goes like this…

MOM: “We have to go to the grocery store.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Hey, I don’t want to go either, but it’s either
that or we’re eating cream of onion-ketchup soup
and drinking Italian dressing for dinner tonight.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Now here are the rules: do not ask me for
anything, do not poke the packages of meat in the
butcher section, do not test the laws of physics and
try to take out the bottom can in the pyramid shaped
display, do not play baseball with oranges in the
produce section, and most importantly, do not try to
leave your brother at the store. Again.”

OK, the kids have been briefed. Time to go.

Once at the store, we grab not one, but two shopping
carts. I wear the baby in a sling and the two little
children sit in the carts while I push one cart and my
oldest son pushes the other one. My oldest daughter
is not allowed to push a cart. Ever. Why? Because
the last time I let her push the cart, she smashed into
my ankles so many times, my feet had to be
amputated by the end of our shopping trip. This is
not a good thing. You try running after a toddler with
no feet sometime.

At this point, a woman looks at our two carts and
asks me, “Are they all yours?” I answer good
naturedly, “Yep!

“Oh my, you have your hands full.”

“Yes, I do, but it‘s fun!” I say smiling. I’ve heard all
this before. In fact, I hear it every time I go anywhere
with my brood.

We begin in the produce section where all these
wonderfully, artistically arranged pyramids of fruit
stand. There is something so irresistibly appealing
about the apple on the bottom of the pile, that a child
cannot help but try to touch it. Much like a bug to a
zapper, the child is drawn to this piece of fruit. I turn
around to the sounds of apples cascading down the
display and onto the floor. Like Indiana Jones, there
stands my son holding the all-consuming treasure
that he just HAD to get and gazing at me with this
dumbfounded look as if to say, “Did you see that???
Wow! I never thought that would happen!”

I give the offending child an exasperated sigh and
say, “Didn’t I tell you, before we left, that I didn’t want
you taking stuff from the bottom of the pile???”

“No. You said that you didn’t want us to take a can
from the bottom of the pile. You didn’t say anything
about apples.”

With superhuman effort, I resist the urge to send my
child to the moon and instead focus on the positive -
my child actually listened to me and remembered
what I said!!! I make a mental note to be a little more
specific the next time I give the kids The Grocery
Store Lecture.

A little old man looks at all of us and says, “Are all of
those your kids?”

Thinking about the apple incident, I reply, “Nope.
They just started following me. I’ve never seen them
before in my life.”

OK, now onto the bakery section where everything
smells so good, I’m tempted to fill my cart with
cookies and call it a day. Being on a perpetual diet, I
try to hurry past the assortment of pies, cakes,
breads, and pastries that have my children drooling.
At this point the chorus of “Can we gets” begins.

“Can we get donuts?”

“No.”

“Can we get cupcakes?”

“No.”

“Can we get muffins?”

“No.”

“Can we get pie?”

“No.”

You’d think they’d catch on by this point, but no,
they’re just getting started.

In the bakery, they’re giving away free samples of
coffee cake and of course, my kids all take one.
toddler decides he doesn’t like it and proceeds to
spit it out in my hand. (That’s what moms do. We put
our hands in front of our children’s mouths so they
can spit stuff into them. We’d rather carry around a
handful of chewed up coffee cake, than to have the
child spit it out onto the floor. I’m not sure why this is,
but ask any mom and she’ll tell you the same.) Of
course, there’s no garbage can around, so I continue
shopping one-handed while searching for
someplace to dispose of the regurgitated mess
in my hand.

In the meat department, a mother with one small
baby asks me, “Wow! Are all six yours?”

I answer her, “Yes, but I’m thinking of selling
a couple of them.”

(Still searching for a garbage can at this point.)

Ok, after the meat department, my kids’ attention
spans are spent. They’re done shopping at this
point, but we aren’t even halfway through the store.
This is about the time they like to start having
shopping cart races. And who may I thank for
teaching them this fun pastime? My seventh “child”,
also known as my husband. While I’m picking out
loaves of bread, the kids are running down the aisle
behind the carts in an effort to get us kicked out of
the store. I put a stop to that just as my son is about
to crash head on into a giant cardboard cut-out of a
Keebler elf stacked with packages of cookies.

Ah! Yes! I find a small trash can by the coffee
machine in the cereal aisle and finally dump out the
squishy contents of my hand. After standing in the
cereal aisle for an hour and a half while the kids
perused the various cereals, comparing the
marshmallow and cheap, plastic toy content of each
box, I broke down and let them each pick out a box.
At any given time, we have twenty open boxes
of cereal in my house.

As this is going on, my toddler is playing Houdini and
maneuvering his little body out of the seat belt in an
attempt to stand up in the cart. I’m amazed the kid
made it to his second birthday without suffering a
brain damaging head injury. In between trying to flip
himself out of the cart, he sucks on the metal bars
of the shopping cart. Mmmm, can you say “influenza”?

The shopping trip continues much like this. I break
up fights between the kids now and then and stoop
down to pick up items that the toddler has flung out
of the cart. I desperately try to get everything on my
list without adding too many other goodies to the carts.

Somehow I manage to complete my shopping in
under four hours and head for the check-outs where
my kids start in on a chorus of, “Can we have
candy?” What evil minded person decided it would
be a good idea to put a display of candy in the
check-out lanes, right at a child’s eye level?
Obviously someone who has never been shopping
with children.

As I unload the carts, I notice many extra items that
my kids have sneaked in the carts unbeknownst to
me. I remove a box of Twinkies, a package of
cupcakes, a bag of candy, and a can of cat food (we
don’t even have a cat!). I somehow missed the box
of Pokemon cards however and ended up
purchasing them unbeknownst to me. As I pay for
my purchases, the clerk looks at me, indicates my
kids, and asks, “Are they all yours?”

Frustrated, exhausted from my trip, sick to my
stomach from writing out a check for $289.53,
dreading unloading all the groceries and putting them
away and tired of hearing that question, I look at
the clerk and answer her in my most sarcastic voice,
“No. They’re not mine. I just go around the
neighborhood gathering up kids to take to the
grocery store because it’s so much more fun that way.”

So, up for auction is an opened (they ripped open
the box on the way home from the store) package of
Pokemon cards. There are 44 cards total. They're in
perfect condition, as I took them away from the
kiddos as soon as we got home from the store.
Many of them say "Energy". I tried carrying them
around with me, but they didn't work. I definitely didn't
have any more energy than usual. One of them is
shiny. There are a few creature-like things on many
of them. One is called Pupitar. Hee hee hee Pupitar!
(Oh no! My kids' sense of humor is rubbing off on
me!) Anyway, I don't think there's anything special
about any of these cards, but I'm very much not an
authority on Pokemon cards. I just know that I'm not
letting my kids keep these as a reward for their
sneakiness.

Dawn, my sincere thanks for permission to use your work on my site.