Diary of a Shopping Trip

10am- Get both boys diapered and dressed
10:30- Load into the car, pass out juices, turn on movies, hand out earphones.
10:45- Leave to go to the store
10:55- Park, get both boys out of the car. Hold one while one-handed undo the carseat safety belts.
11:00-Grab a cart and try to force both or at least one into the cart so I only have to track one baby at a time. No luck, both want to push the cart. Fine as long as I get to steer. No luck there either. Josh insists he is a good driver and can steer himself and removes my hands with whine. So I go to the front of the cart to to act as a bumper to the innocent/secret steerer.
11:03- I try to keep us straight but the boys know where the cookie counter is. "cookie" "cookie" "cookie" until I finally acknowledge "do you want a cookie?" "I dooooooo".
11:03 (still) head to the cookie counter where my children stare down the very busy bakery ladies. They put on their biggest starving children eyes and peer through the black rubber mat doors.
11:04 Bakery ladies acknowledge my clearly starved children and gives them 3 cookies. Perfect! One for each and one to fight over. Good thinking! Thank you Bakery Lady!
11:04 (still) head over to the fruit section because I have coupons. Get the 2 fruits I need and the cart moves on (whether I want it to or not).
11:05 and there is a nice big straight away. Heart sinks. They're off! I run to cath up to the front of the cart (my only allowable designated spot). I veer them left into Pickles and Peppers aisle. I have every intention of "shopping" for dice jalapenos. iThe cart railroads down the aisle, I shield the innocent, grab a glass jar of sliced jalapenos and tell myself how lucky I was to get the jar. Totally not what I wanted but if I shopped for any amount of time, I would have to sprint to catch my rolling cart. I can chop jalapenos!
11:05 (still) and we turn right into a more trafficky part of the store. Oh God. Next aisle looks good so I veer them down it. I do not need anything but I again save the innocent from the out of control cart being run by toddlers.
11:06 get to the back again where it is a wide open long straight runway. Oh no. Jake sees hotdogs and decides he must stop and look. Josh continues on, happier now that he is in full control. Another mother kindly intervenes and watches Jake and I run to get my cart. I get the cart stopped and tell Josh to wait. I go back to get Jake and thank the kind mother for her assistance.
11:10 grab cheese...still not sure what I got.
11:12 Grab a bunch of Savorings, still not sure what I got.
11:13 Get frozen cookie dough.
11:20 go into the pharmacy section and they both want to play with the blood pressure machine. Perfect! I get the few things I needed, got exactly what I needed, price compared, looked around. It was heaven for a moment. I think I even saved a few bucks by being able to stop and look.
Time to go to check out. Oh Geez.
I count my items. 19 on the nose. I can go to the quick check. Perfect!
Jake is pushing the cart over and over into the lane hitting the coveyor. Josh takes off because there is an ATM Machine.
I call Josh and tell him if he stays with me, I will take him to McDonalds. "MCDAWNAWDS!" "MCDAWNAWDS!""MCDAWNAWDS!""MCDAWNAWDS!" "FWENCH FWIES!" "FWENCH FWIES!""FWENCH FWIES!" As I am unloading and Josh is screamung "FWENCH FWIES!" and "MCDAWNAWDS!" they are spinning the grocery bag holding. It was going a good 5 RPM's. The kind cashier said "oh watch their fingers" as she is trying to catch the lazy suzy that has now become a merry-go-round from Haides. So I am pulling them away over and over. I quickly run the card pulling both boys off the lazy susan plastic bag holder and we are done. Whew.
We go to leave, Josh bee lines for "MCDAWNAWDS!" yelling the whole way. Jake decides he wants to go into Customer Service. So I go to grab Jake and he decides to lose all his bones and flop to the floor. So I pick him and and he arching backwards over my shoulder. Now suddenly no one wants to push the cart. So I am one-handedly pushing the cart with Jake flopped backwards over my shoulder and Josh is up ordering his own food at "MCDAWNAWDS!"
I pull my cart over go in and order. I hand Josh his bag and we load into the car. Josh passes out with a chicken nugget in his hand.
I get home, get both boys to bed, flop on the couch and think about why it is I am so tired all the time.