Piece of Advice

Tyler asked me to post a letter I wrote to one of our nieces for one of his friends. It's a little lengthy, but here goes. (I'll leave out the personal greeting etc!)

March 7, 2007
I just got off the phone with your mom and she mentioned that you were feeling a little overwhelmed now having two little people to watch, comfort, feed, protect, etc., etc. So I just wanted to be the first to tell you - IT ONLY GETS WORSE! No, really, everyday will bring you a new epiphany. I've had some of my own in the last few years with regard to the the most terrifying of all arenas we mothers must face - the Grocery Store:

1. Those cute little racing car shopping carts are straight from heaven! If you don't have them at the stores you frequent, you should petition for them. Young mothers will flock by the hundreds and wait in their cars until another one becomes available. The carts with the car in front of the shopping cart are particularly ungainly and you will feel pregnant all over again as you run the cart into the sides of aisles (and slower shoppers), BUT you can contain at least three children in them! Said children may even stay content for upwards of fifteen minutes before they will require one of the many treats they will spy from their little car windows. At this point they will undoubtedly make a break for their escape. Being the shopping savvy mother you are, you will certainly whack the plastic doors shut before they can crawl all the way out. Luckily for the little ones the front windows are far big enough for them to hurtle themselves through before you can do anything but run them over. (Still, you had fifteen minutes.)
The carts that are designed with the entire cart being a race car can be problematic until the baby can sit up by himself because the only place the baby-carrier fits is actually in the basket itself. So, you're pretty much back to square one with those - forget I mentioned it. (However, child #1 IS happier driving a 'race car' than sitting in a shopping cart, and child #2 is probably asleep and won't mind a loaf or two of bread and a head of lettuce harmlessly lying on his feet. I will never admit, of course, to giving you that advice, and have certainly NEVER done it myself. . . heh heh.)

2. As for letting the older sibling ride lying down on the very bottom of regular shopping carts - I don't recommend it, no matter how hard they beg, or how clever they think they are to have thought of it. HYPOTHETICALLY speaking, they might stick their hands out and pull many, many boxes off the shelves. They might turn sideways when you aren't looking, at which point YOU will knock many, many boxes off the shelves as you unknowingly ram their sweet little heads into a nearby stack of Cheerios (inexplicably placed mid-aisle - oooh a "stack-out sale!"). They will most assuredly run their fingers along the wheels and drag their sleeves on the nasty floor. AND, at some point, of course, you will run over their filthy digits and receive many horrified "what were you thinking" glares as your child sobs (dirty fingers, sleeves and all) into the side of your leg and you try to disappear into the floor.

3. Letting your child run free is also not advisable. Aside from the obvious kidnapping threat, the unsecured child may find an uncontrollable urge to drop his pants and dance in the frozen foods section while you wheel madly around the corner in an attempt to catch him. (This is, by the way, ALWAYS the time you will run into your disapproving Miss Kravitz-like neighbor who will feign concern that your darling child was about to be abducted until she heroically arrived on the scene.) He may run away from you so fast that he will trip and hit his head on the concrete floor and then cry so hard that he throws up in your hair and down your shirt when you pick him up to comfort him. (Okay, so that was actually in a department store, but it could just as easily happen in the grocery store. AND, being the run-down housewife that I am, I will have you know I managed to 'clean' all of us up in the bathroom and STILL buy a new pair of 'sevens' before I left. . .every cloud has to have a silver lining.) He might, once more, start an avalanche of many, many apples, oranges, onions, etc. when he grabs the one that was apparently holding all the others up. He may even decide to ride on the side of one of those smaller shopping carts some stores are so brilliant to use and pull the whole thing over on top of himself. . . (More glares from perfect mothering types will thus ensue.)

So, what do we do? I suggest midnight shopping, or telling your husband you're merely getting something from the car (with your purse over your shoulder) and driving away like mad. Naturally, this course of action will only work so many times before he catches on. Don't worry though, you're not at all alone - every mother of more than one child knows exactly what you're feeling. You can haul one rugrat anywhere, anytime. With two, you suddenly feel tied down and half crazed all the time! You'll get it all figured out sooner than you think (about the time you realize you're pregnant with number three . . .when the games REALLY begin!). Enjoy the madness - I hear you'll miss it someday! :)