If you noticed I put #1 in the title, that’s because, it’s when you go shopping with kids that irony, mother nature and indeed the kids themselves climb aboard your last nerve!
Like when you decide to walk to the supermarket because the weather’s nice and you want to get a bit fitter and healthier. Two thirds of the way there, black clouds roll in from nowhere, the heavens open and it p***es down with rain. Realising you have no rain covers for your double buggy and no mobile phone, you run for the shops.
Having spent half an hour pretending to be browsing, you realise the rain isn’t stopping anytime soon and reluctantly leave the shop. You take off your jacket and drape it over the buggy to keep your newborn twins dry. Your 5yr old (who refused to wear a coat) is pushing her dolly in a pram, at the speed of an injured snail. You shove the dolly in the under-buggy-basket, along with the pram (thank goodness it folds up) and ask said 5yr old to run. She obliges. So now you are travelling at the speed of a tortoise.
You balance the 5yr old on the footplate of the buggy, which weighs the front end down so much that you no longer have swivel steering. You run home in this torrential downpour, pushing three children, completely unaware that your white vest top is now see through. Stereotypically, a white van man honks his horn in appreciation of seeing your milky breastpads swell up like tampons. This is the point you become aware that you look like a total moron!
Well that was last week!
Today I decided to walk to the supermarket again… but made sure I had raincovers! The 5yr old pushes the trolley while I push the pram.
Naturally, she pushes the trolley into things, people, the buggy, and me… repeatedly. We can’t walk more than three feet without her asking for something and by the second aisle I’m regretting this trip. At least once in every aisle I scoop her off the floor as she swings under the trolley, getting her clothes fifty shades of black and sincerely irritating me. I’ve lost all concentration and am simultaneously lobbing random items in the trolley and swatting away the hands of old ladies, whom are cooing over the twins. “DONT TOUCH MY BABIES, THEY ARE ASLEEP” (and I don’t know where your hands have been)!
It’s not until I am struggling to balance things on top of the trolley, that it dawns on me… How am I going to get this lot home? Oh shit! Perhaps I could put some of it back? Noooo.
a) It’d take too long
b) I’d look like a chav
c) I need all this stuff!
d) I can’t stick anymore yelling at the 5yr old. I want to go home.
The payphone doesn’t work.
My mobile doesn’t work.
I end up with a buggy that looks like this…
Two thirds of the way home (UPHILL), hubby drives up in the car…
“You’ve been gone three hours, I thought I’d better come look for you, make sure you’re okay?”
Aaaaww my hero!
“I couldn’t call and I bought too much shopping to fit in the pram”, I sigh.
“Okay, see you at home”, he says, before driving off!
I stand there for a moment, flabbergasted that he didn’t take some of the shopping from me. It starts to rain.
I arrive home ten minutes later, looking damp and disheveled. My thighs and calves are burning, I’m sweaty and out of breath, my arms are aching and I appear have developed a muscly set of ‘guns’.
Hubby… is sitting on the sofa with his feet up, watching the Olympics!!!
Brilliant post! I’ve had all those things happen to me!
Ha ha that’s so funny. Thanks for sharing. Just think of all the chocolate you are justified in eating now after your mammoth efforts. Just remember my top tips for survival; medals. You have certainly earnt lots of medals for your achievements. Well done you.
haha! i think online shopping may be the way forward… ? x x