Market Melt

As mothers we have all experienced it. The public meltdown. I normally have a little mental checklist I go through before entering the grocery store:

Has Bear gone pee lately? Is Squirrel dry?

When's the last time they ate? Should I be anticipating a low blood sugar crash?

Have I told Bear what I expect - don't wap the price tags, don't leave my side and no, we are not getting Fruit Loops.

The other day, I had answered:

Yes, yes

Right before we left - they're good for a couple of hours

AND

Yes!

So, the shopping trip should have been a success, yes?

No, it most certainly was not. It was the most horrific, painful, rip my stupid gray streaked hair out and burn in on the floor type of trip.

It started in the parking lot. For some reason I couldn't figure out Squirrel started to cry. He kicked his legs against the shopping cart, knocking off his rubber boots and exposing his bare feet. He was wailing, lamenting, wringing his hands. At this point the need for food trumped the need to abandon ship. If I didn't come out of the market for something, we'd be eating noodles with butter for dinner. Against my better judgement I entered the store, attempting to comfort my baby while fending off the nasty glances of senior shoppers.

Squirrels shrieks turned to gravelly groans. His face turned red. He started to rock the cart. He was one step away from projectile vomit and a spinning head. I hate not knowing what my baby wants. It is so sad when he doesn't have the words. I can't explain to him that we need food, that I'm a neglectful mother to let the food situation in our house get so dire. I wanted to pop a cookie in his mouth to shut him up. I wanted to run across the parking lot to Spinnaker's and grab the first bottle of hard liquor I found on the shelf and down it right there in the store.

I rocked him gently, and he still wouldn't stop crying. He twisted and dove for the cart, the basket part of the cart that contained his boots. He pulled out the boots, threw them on the ground and wriggled out of my arms. He jammed his feet into the boots, took my hands and smiled.

That's it? It was about boots?

This particular trip reminded me of a trip I took with Bear, while heavily pregnant with Squirrel. Bear was 2 1/2 at the time. He was not toilet trained yet. It was near dinner time - the stupidest time to grocery shop. I don't even remember what set him off but as we were leaving and he was screaming he grabbed at a rack of pamphlet as he stretched out of my arms. I hadn't realized that he actually had a grip on the rack and the whole thing came tumbling down. There were pamphlets and papers everywhere. The rack made such a clatter that the entire store seemed to stop for a moment, like a restaurant will when someone breaks a dish. I felt like every set of eyes in the store was watching me. The judgemental middle-aged woman. The 80 year old grandfather that made his own children choose their switch off the backyard tree. Young women who didn't yet have children, but by golly would never have a brat like that. It was then that I truley wanted to spontaneous combust.

I found myself pushing the shopping cart out of the store in a daze. I got to my car and I feel apart. A woman appeared and asked me if I needed help. I let her load my groceries for me as Bear screamed in my arms. I thanked her and she went on her way. I sat in my car and I cried. A few moments later there was a knock at my window. The same woman said "I am so sorry you had to go through that. We all do. My kids do it at Walmart." Those words, they were the most comforting words of my life. She asked if she could hug me, and for the first time in my life I let a stranger hug me, in the parking lot of Save On Foods, and I sobbed.

For me it is always a good reminder not to judge other Mamas when we see them having a tough time with their children. Maybe the babe is under fed, tired, or wet. Maybe they really want something they can't have and are having a tough time accepting that. Chances are the Mama is handling it the best way she knows how.

And for the record, I am positive the woman in the picture above has a bottle of scotch in her purse.