Grocery Shopping with Pre-Schoolers

There is nothing that warms your heart more than being waited on.

Yesterday we had our Mother's Day Luncheon at the school. Brynna gave me gifts of art, brought my food to me and placed it on the table and washed my dirty silverware. Good times. Seriously, I can't get her to throw dirty silverware in the general direction of the sink at home, but at school, she walks to a sink of hot soapy water, washes it with a cloth, rinses it and places it in a dish strainer. Are they drugging her?

I digress. One of my gifts (other than a glimpse of what life could be like if I were as disciplined as Montessori) was a story. A personal narrative, if you will. Brynna wrote me a story about her favorite thing to do with her mom. She drew me a picture to go with it and glued on a photo of herself. It was so sweet. I cried. Part of the picture she drew was of our dog when her ear exploded this winter. Again, good times.

Guess what Brynna's favorite thing to do with her mom is! Guess!! Guess!!! Is it Mommy-daughter date nights, story time at the library, Pizza Hut, the zoo, taking the longcut home? Nope. It's the grocery store. The freakin' miserable, hell-on-Earth, please-don't-make-me-take-one-of-the-kids, how-long-do-I-have-to-stay-here grocery. Seriously, who likes the damn grocery?

My kid. That's who. Apparently, watching mom compare the generic granola bars to the brand name ones that we have a coupon for is hella entertaining. Apparently, this is big fun for tiny children. Apparently, she likes watching me freak out about the cost of formula and curl up in a shivering, blubbering ball when we run out of shampoo.

I was mentally ranting and raving about this turn of events, realizing that I was going to have to take her with me more often, thinking that maybe I should be teaching some math and home economics lessons while I'm staring at the myriad varieties and brands of canned corn.

And then I remembered something. I used to like the grocery too. I used to be her. I used to hope and pray that Grandmommy would wait to go until I got home from school. That I would get to tag along and ride on the cart and pick out the cereal and maybe, just maybe get a treat. That I would get to poke my fingers through the cart and touch the frosty outside of the ice cream carton and see if I could pick up the big bag of dog food. My favorite thing was when she would forget something and send me all by myself back across the store to get it.

So, I was freakin' insane too. And I'm going to develop an eye twitch from taking her to the grocery, but I guess I'm going to do it.

Let's go shopping, yo.