My Adventures in SAHM-ing
Anyone who spends any time on “mommmy sites” will recognize SAHM as “stay at home mom”. earlier this week, I unexpectedly became a SAHM. Today is my first real day of it.
Groceries. Nothing simpler than running to the grocery store, right? I’ve been doing it for years.. decades.. Well, never mind exactly how long. I’m having my sisters over for dinner tonight and thought the grocery store would be a spiffy way to get started on this whole SAHM thing.
I must say that going to the grocery store in the middle of the morning on a weekday beats the pants off getting jostled by the crowds on a Saturday afternoon. There were very few people there. It was relatively easy to navigate the cart around… even with the 5-year-old helping me by “driving”.
It was the constant whine that really got to me. I hardly even noticed it at first… a tickle in my ear that eventually started to feel like a stab at my brain stem.
“Mommy, can I have the Super Mega Death By Sugar Bops? It has a picture of Dora on it so it must be good for me.”
“Mommy, can I have a balloon?”
(She changes her tactic slightly) “Mommy, look! They have candy here!”
“Mommy, can I have a balloon?”
“Look, Mommy. They have movies here. Can I have a movie?”
“Wow. Look at the pretty balloons, Mommy.”
“Mommy, I think the Aunties would like some ice cream.”
“No, Mommy. I don’t like that! Put it back! Put it back!”
“Mommy? Can I have a balloon? Please? Please? Please?”
…You get the idea.
Thankfully, the shopping list was short and I was able to leave without either buying a stupid balloon or going through the store and popping each and every one just to make the noise stop.
So we get out of the store and I look across the frozen parking lot (did I mention it was 11 degrees above zero and windy?) to realized that I had parked my car on the incline of a pretty good-sized hill. I look down into a cart full of groceries and (inspired by the weather) a box of fireplace logs.
Oh, crap.
OK. I stop and ask myself: What would a professional SAHM do? Probably get the child in the car first. Makes sense. She’s big enough to get the door open and climb in herself. That’s not bad.
I snag the child by the hand and we bolt across the Arctic tundra of the parking lot. The wind is sucking the moisture right out of my eyes. I unlock the doors with the remote and spin the child off toward the door. Obediently (though probably just to get out of the wind) she promptly opens the door and climbs in.
Hey. Maybe I’m not so bad at this SAHM thing after all.
I get the hatch open and start piling in bags. The child is still babbling on about the magical balloons inside the grocery store. I toss a bag of cookies at her and she giggles gleefully.
“What else do you have back there, Mommy?”
“Eat your cookies.”
“OK, Mommy.”
The wind catches me full in the face and I close my eyes for a minute to keep my eyeballs from popping out. When I open them, my cart has turned itself and targeted a brand new Lexus. It was picking up speed. No no no no… I don’t need to fix a Lexus right now. I dash out into the lot like Wonder Woman and grab the cart, stopping it about 2 feet from the Lexus door.
Muttering, I push it back to the car.
There are still bags in the cart and the fireplace logs and on the rack underneath. Having tasted freedom once, the cart wants badly to get away again. I can’t find the magic spot where it won’t roll away from me. I hook one foot through a bar and start heaving groceries into the car.
Now to get the fireplace logs.
That was trickier. I needed both hands to lift the 25-lb box and I was having a lot of trouble keeping control of the now bucking cart. Just as I’m straightening up and thinking about where to put the box now that I’ve thrown my groceries all over the back of the car, something orange comes flying out of the back seat.
A backpack.
Next comes a book… and then a blanket.
OK. So picture it. I’m standing in a parking lot, a big and obviously heavy box in my hands, my hair is whipping around my face, I have one foot on a shopping cart that is slowly twisting over onto its side, and staring at a growing heap of random child’s toys getting burped out of the back seat.
“Child, so help me, if another things comes flying out of that back seat I am taking you home and putting you to bed and you won’t get to come out for dinner with the Aunties!”
There was a pause.. then a quiet “OK, Mommy.”
I got rid of the cart (pushing it perhaps a tiny bit harder than I needed to into the other carts in the corral) and stomped back to the car. I pick up the child’s stuff from the parking lot and — slowly and gently — placed them on the back seat.
“Hey, Mommy. Did you see that Tinker Bell balloon? I’d really like to have one of those. Do you think you could get me one of those?”
Say it with me all SAHMs, SAHDs and everyone else! Death to all supermarket balloons!
