Adventures in Grocery Shopping

So yesterday (Saturday) I went grocery shopping with both babies by myself for the first time ever. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, although it was pretty hard. Getting them both out of their car seats was tricky. First I put on my diaper bag, next unbuckled Erik and left him in his seat, then I unbuckled David and got him out. Then I could lift Erik out (while still holding David), lock the doors, and walk from the car to the store.

At the store there were no carts to hold two babies in the front, so I put both of them in the basket and put groceries on the bottom. That worked for awhile, but I was running out of room. I figured they couldn't do much damage to themselves (or the food) with some canned vegetables, so I put those next to the boys and made a little barrier of cans. Then I could put food in the basket too.

This worked well until David got a hold of a box of mac and cheese. "He can't open it," I thought, so I let him shake it to his heart's content. A few minutes later I was distracted by a couple who wanted to talk to me about my babies. I answered all of the usual questions and comments: "Are they twins? Are they identical? Are you sure? They look just like each other! Which one is older? You must really have your hands full." After bidding farewell, I looked down at David, who I noticed had stopped shaking his box of macaroni, and he had chewed a hole right through the box! I got all of the box pieces out of his mouth, took away his box, gave him a toy to distract him from his loss, and tried to hurry on to finish my shopping.

We were almost done. I just needed to get some frozen veggies, but I was rapidly running out of room in my cart with my boys taking up so much space. One of the bags got within Erik's grasp, and I thought, "He can't chew a hole in that." Well, he couldn't. But he could pile up frozen vegetables on his lap until he was a little baby-sickle. I didn't even notice until we were pulling up to the check out, and he started to cry. I felt so bad. His legs were so cold and red. So I held him while I unloaded my groceries. Thankfully the couple behind me was very understanding, and they helped me unload my cart. The checker went into "speedy checkout mode," and the bagger offered to help me to my car.

While walking out I saw a mother pushing a cart with two spots for babies at the front. "Next time I'm using that cart," I thought to myself. The bagger loaded my bags into the trunk while I strapped in the babies, and we headed for home. The boys and I were all exhausted and happy to be back home. Thankfully my boys are great about playing in their cribs by themselves, so I was able to unload and put away groceries with no crying babies.

Oh. We had mac and cheese for dinner. :)