Groceries

Time changed.  My kids sleep later.  I am happy.  We are also perpetually late to everything.  I had precisely fifteen minutes to get three kids fed, dressed, and out the door.  I had 30 seconds to get myself ready.  After dropping two-thirds of the children off, I wanted to go home and shower and comb my hair and put on some make-up, but I couldn’t.  (I used the 30 seconds to pull on pants and brush my teeth, in case you were wondering.) 

Unfortunately, I desperately need to go to the store four days ago, so unless I was planning on defrosting the turkey I bought for Thanksgiving, the grocery store was next on my list. (right after the drive-through coffee shop)  So armed with coffee and an almost-two-year old with a snotty nose, Backyardigans clothing (his pick and someone else’s purchase), and no shoes or socks, I headed into the store.  The little ragamuffin talked me into the dreaded racecar cart, which I reasoned would not be a disaster because he didn’t have anyone to fight with.  Wrong.  He was done “driving” before I even made it through produce.

So, now I’m carrying him in one arm, pushing the cart with the other, and stopping every 15 seconds or so to take a drink of my now lukewarm coffee.  During one of my coffee breaks, another mother-son team rounds the corner with her abandoned racecar.  I backed up so she could squeeze by and said, “Aren’t you glad you got the racecar?”  She laughed and we both smiled and moved on. 

I met up with her again in the bread aisle, and now that we were old friends, she asked my opinion on bread.  I told her what I thought, and then she asked how old #3 was.  I told her almost two.  She commented that he was big.  I wanted to tell her that it’s just his giant head that makes him look like a middle-schooler, but didn’t.  ”So, he’s your youngest?” she asked.

Huh, what?!  No mention was ever made that I have more children.  How in the world did she know?  “Yeah,” I finally responded, “I have three.”

We continued chatting for another minute, and then I made my way to the check-out bewildered at how she knew #3 has siblings.  I put #3 up on the counter next to the conveyor belt, and he began swinging his little bare feet.  And that’s when I figured it out.  Mothers of one child do not come to the store unshowered, at 10am, with a shoe-less, sock-less, crusty-nosed, hideously-dressed child, and pretend like nothing is wrong.  They get ready for these kind of “events” and probably use one of those shopping cart germ protector cover things.  

My name is Meghan, and I look like a mother.  You better believe I went home and showered.