A Great Day For Grocery Shopping

Mondays are laundry day & grocery day in our household. I really enjoy getting the laundry done at the beginning of the week so I don't have to worry about it for a whole other week. I also really enjoy (having planned some meals for the week) heading off to the grocery store w/ the kidlets.

When it was just Asher & I, we'd spend a lazy Monday morning walking up & down the aisles of our SuperStore. There's no one else there usually, partially due to the fact that we are there during the morning, & partially due to the fact that we are there at 8:30 or 9 on said morning.

Adding Chancery to the mix has complicated things a bit. When she wakes up in the morning she has about 1-2 hours of time before she has a meltdown & needs to sleep again. So I know there will be no more relaxing trips to the grocery store for awhile, instead they need to be quick in & out jobbies. However, this is proving to be difficult for a few reasons:

1. We just moved & I need to restock many of the items that I would have on hand (spices, meats, frozen things, canned goods), but I want to do it as I need them so I don't have a bunch of stuff that sits on my shelves taking up valuable space. (When we moved from Ontario I filled 3 laundry baskets w/ items I had had over a year & never used to donate to the food bank).
2. I tried shopping at a different grocery store than the one I went to in Ontario, but I wasn't as happy w/ the products they had.
3. I have returned to the chain that I frequented in Ontario, so I know the brands I like, but the store is laid out quite a bit different, so I find myself retracing my steps ALL THE TIME to try & get all the items on my list.
4. Chancery starts to cry about 10 minutes into the shopping trip. At that point I can't really head back home to try coming back another time, so I must forge ahead w/ a crying baby & a 2 year old who "wants to help" by pushing her plug in rather forcefully or removing it just as I quiet her down.

My favourite part? When the people who are shopping look at you & then at the red-faced screaming baby & then the whinging 2 year old & shake their heads acusingly. I want to tell them:

• Yes, I do like it when my children cry, at least I know their lungs are healthy!
• Yes, I did pinch them to make them cry
• They are always this happy
• What do you mean she looks angry?

People just don't seem to understand that even though my children might be fed up w/ being in the grocery store, unless we want to have all our meals come from a drive-thru, THIS IS HOW WE GROCERY SHOP!! At least for the present time, I hope it starts getting better soon. I enjoy the screaming in the aisles about as much as the next guy, but I can't just go to a different aisle, folks, I'm forced to endure it for the entirety of my shopping experience, aren't you jealous?