A grocery story

I now know for sure, I do not have enough hands and the grocery carts are not big enough. I'm sure I can't be the only one who would benefit from a four seater grocery cart....well maybe I am. I certainly didn't see anyone else at the store with a dilemma like mine. Now, up until today I have been lucky. I have avoided taking all four of my children to the grocery store at the same time. I have accomplished this by waiting until the One Who Works comes home or dropping the two older boys off at Grandma's while the twins and I run in and grab something quick or best of all wait until everybody else has gone to sleep and make a midnight run to Walmart. Nothing like strolling down the abandoned grocery isles in the middle of the night, taking my time to look at every little thing. Even on those rare occasions when I've managed to pawn a couple of kids off for a shopping trip there is no time to linger, it's literally grab and go. The twins are not patient, and when they cry the milk comes, so by the time I get to the check out counter I'm uncomfortable and so is anyone within earshot of the dueling screamers. Today my luck ran out, I had to go. I'm having a dozen guests for dinner tonight and could find nothing to feed them in my entire house. I even dove to the bottom of my deep freezer desperately searching for a long forgotten petrified roast....no luck. I tried all my usual saviors, Grandma had a nail appointment, the drop in daycare next door was all full, and The One Who Works would be home way to late for me to prepare anything suitable for guests. So I loaded us all up and headed to my favorite grocery store, the whole way there, I lectured the boys about how they were going to have to walk through the store and not touch anything, (my head was filling with dreaded images of towers of canned corn rolling down the isles at slightest touch from my boys) they were going to have to hold hands and keep up with the cart and if all went well, and Mommy was smiling when we finished I would buy them a treat. Now grocery carts are not built for families like mine, but we did our best. With both infant car seats in the grocery cart it leaves very little room for groceries, so I had a very condensed shopping list. The boys were troopers, Peanut somehow managed to hold onto little Walnut's hand, even though Walnut didn't want to hold hands and they were even able to hold onto the cart while I swerved and dodged other carts and shoppers. Did I mention today's the day before Thanksgiving and probably the biggest grocery shopping day of the year? I had to cut the whole thing short when we ran out of room to put groceries, poor Little Red could barely be seen in the cart with all the food piled around him and when a can of sweet and condensed milk slipped and landed on his head, we were done. We carefully and slowly wove our way to the check out, by now I have even resorted to loading up Peanut and Walnut with something to carry. I'm sure we were a sight, one frazzled Mom pushing a cart with what appears to be screaming groceries, followed by two little boys dragging a bag of apples and two heads of lettuce. Needless to say we survived the trip, and my boys got their treat, and would you believe in the parking lot on the way to our car a woman ran up and stopped me and said what nice, well behaved, helpful boys I had. She said she had watch us in the store and amongst all the chaos noticed how well my children had behaved. I have to agree, I can't say I know of another one and three year old who while holding hands can walk every isle of an entire store carrying groceries while keeping up with a grocery cart pushed my a hurried mom frantic to get out and back home. Thanks boys, your Mommy is smiling!