shopping with the kids

Today I went grocery shopping without the kids. It actually doesn't happen all that often. I always intend to go on my own either on the weekend or in an evening, but I really like my husband and I find it tough to leave here when he's here. Instead I end up packing up the kids during the week and shopping at three or four different stores to buy my van load of groceries.

Today, I decided to go without them. It's actually pretty nice. Not that I don't love them, but I don't love them any less when they're at home and I'm at the store either.

I was at WalMart, leisurely browsing through baby clothes and grabbing a few groceries and a new mop head (and you thought my life wasn't exciting, HA). When I got to the checkout one of my prices came up quite a bit higher than it said on the shelf. As I was waiting for first a price check and then an override I happened to notice another woman about four lanes over trying to pay for her groceries.

She had her three kids with her. I think the younger two were twins, probably about five years old, the older one wasn't much older, a year maybe two.

As a mother of three myself, one of two of which aren't in the cart by the time I pay, I know what it's like trying to keep them at the checkout while I finish up. It's impossible. Actually, what made me notice them in the first place was when one of them yelled "Hey! Look at Connor!" I looked. I'm sure he was talking to his own mom, but heck, my kids weren't with me. I had time to look at other people.

Connor was driving one of the courtesy scooters (not sure what they're actually called) that are on hand for people who don't get around so well on their own.


I started to laugh. I tried to contain myself, but it was probably pretty obvious that I was trying desperately not to laugh. I don't think the mom noticed. She had her wallet in her hand and was trying to pay for her stuff. She took a step toward her son and then seemed to remember that the clerk was waiting for her to finish up. She took a half a step back toward the till, and then changed her mind and ran over to her son, yelling his name to get off. The little weasel just laughed and kept driving the thing back and forth. She grabbed him and hauled him off and scolded him. I'd have been scared. She looked seriously unimpressed. The boy wasn't so scared, the minute she went back to counting out her money he was back on there. She hollered his name again, this time threatening that the cops were outside. "No they're not," said the boy, laughing. You could tell she was really mad. The kids were having a ball regardless.

I laughed. I held it in.

I got back to my van and sat there for a minute and laughed to myself. I don't know why I thought it was funny. It just was. It made my day.

It's usually my kids that I'm yelling at as I'm trying to pay. I'm sure everyone in a 100 foot radius of me knows the names of my older two kids by the time I leave the store. "Jordan, get back here! Tennyson, don't touch that! Put that back! Jordan! Tennyson! You will get NO COOKIE at Sobeys!" It's constant.

I felt for the woman, I truly did. I think my laughter was partly because it was someone else for once, and partly because it's nice to see that my kids are pretty normal.

I do have to say though, that they haven't figured out how to drive the scooters. Yet.