The Little Cart

I know that any of you with small children will relate when I tell you that I absolutely hate taking Davis to the grocery store with me. As soon as he was mobile, he hated riding in the shopping cart. Naturally, I've tried to avoid taking him at all costs.

Sometimes, though, it can't be avoided.

A while back, I had to go to the store with both kids. They really wanted to ride in that race car cart. Whoever invented that monstrosity obviously hated parents. Why else would someone create a cart that weighs three times more than a standard cart and has zero steering control? But, I gave in. And the kids were happy, especially when they had the complimentary cookie and bread sample that Harris Teeter so generously provides.  We've taken the race car cart a bunch of times now, and all goes well up until the point when they start getting annoyed with each other. Then it's time to leave. Fast.

So, sometime back in the summer, I had to go pick up just one thing at the store. I took Davis with me. And, I made the rookie mistake of letting him push The Little Cart. You know the one. The "Shopper In Training" one. Davis did great with it and had a great time on our short trip. Remember, though, I only had to get one item. So it was easy.

Now, however, he thinks he needs to have The Little Cart every time we walk into the store. If I'm purchasing more than one or two things, this is a huge impediment to my speediness. Yesterday I went in with a list. There were about 5 things on it, and I had a few other things in mind that we just needed to quickly pick up. This particular store has the wine in the front right when you walk in. Davis immediately took his cart to it and picked up a bottle to put in his cart. By some divine miracle, he didn't drop it, but we had to flee that section immediately.

The rest of the trip was spent with him putting things into his cart and me distracting him while I swiftly returned most of those items to the shelves. I got caught a few times and got a loud, "But I WIKE that!!" We had a number of times when he just didn't want to proceed. And several times where he nearly collided into other shoppers. A trip that should have taken 10 minutes took about 30. And I'm pretty sure I ended up with a few items I didn't pick out.

Next time I'll just go during preschool.