Grocery Shopping

I actually took Kimmie grocery shopping the other day, and she was very good.

For years we have avoided taking Kimmie to the grocery store because it took longer and sometimes involved a lot of hysteria.

When Kimmie was little she could sit in the seat part of the cart, but we could only buy a few groceries that would fit in the bottom of the cart. If the groceries stacked up within her reach she would start pulling them out and throwing them on the floor.

When her legs were too long for her to sit in the seat, then she would have to walk along with us. This became an adventure because she would randomly grab things off the shelves and drop them in the cart. We might be picking something off a shelf, turn around to put it in the cart and there would be all this extra stuff in the cart as Kimmie grabbed and dropped items in as fast as she could. The items she dropped in the cart were not foods she liked, just random things she could reach and grasp. Fishing all these extra items out of the cart, putting them back on the shelf, and trying to keep her from putting more items in the cart, extended the time it took to shop and made the endeavor feel like an olympic event. Exhausting. This is when we stopped taking her to the grocery store. It was just too much trouble.

Now that the store has these extra long carts with the bench seat in the back, it is easier to take her along. She has also mellowed a little bit and does not jump out of the seat as much as when she was younger. There is still, usually, a little hysteria over Kimmie wanting to buy something and having trouble deciding what she wants to get.

The recent trip to the store with Kimmie came about because everyone else in the family was busy, so there was nobody to stay home with Kimmie. I couldn't put off the trip because we were running out of too many things. My list was long--not the best time to be taking Kimmie, but sometimes you have to do what needs to be done no matter what.

As it happened, Daddy had a bottle cap with "buy one get one free" on the inside. I gave Kimmie that bottle cap and told her to hold it for me. We had a little hysteria over Kimmie picking out a movie to buy. She finally settled on a spiderman cartoon--she does love superheros. She held the DVD for a little while but was taking the plastic off of it so I had to take it away and give her back the bottle cap. She held that bottle cap through almost our whole shopping trip. She put it in her pocket. She took it out. She twiddled and fiddled with it.

She still had it when we checked out. We traded the bottle cap for the movie. She only fussed a little when we left the store without the bottle cap.

She was amazingly good for a long shopping excursion. I was proud of her.

--Mom