The Grocery Store

Background:  It’s Saturday afternoon and as usual, I have no food in the house.  Greg is away on a business trip and due back that evening.

The plan:

1)      Quick trip to Sobeys to pick up the bare necessities. 

2)      Return home in plenty of time to prepare awesome June Cleaver style family meal.

3)      Spend evening basking in the glow of our domestic bliss.

What actually happened:

2:00 pm:  We’re going to the grocery store kids.  Get your coats and shoes.   

2:15 pm:  Still looking for coats and shoes.

2:25 pm:  Referee argument about whether Charles is a girl or a boy.  “Charles you’re a girl!”  “No Becca, I’m a boy, I HAVE A PENIS!!!”  Sorry B, you aren’t going to win this one.

2:30 pm:  Finally in the car pulling out of the driveway.   A little behind schedule but we can recover.

2:33 pm:  Hey look kids, a dump truck.  Wailing screams “I wanna see the dump truck again!  Mama, make the dump truck come back!” 

2:45 pm:  Arrive at Sobeys.  Toddlers happily climb out of car and walk cheerfully holding Mama’s hands through the parking lot.  Uh oh.  There’s only one two-seater “truck cart” left.  Hurry, hurry, hurry.  Noooooo!!  Young couple with baby takes the last cart.  That's right, two parents with ONE baby.    Glare at them in hopes they will realize the error of their ways.  Seriously, that kid’s like 8 mths old -- he can’t even reach the steering wheel.  Grrr newby parents.     

2:50 pm: Try to negotiate some arrangement to use a regular cart.  One toddler in the seat and another in the back?  One in the seat and one walking?   Foolish Mama doesn’t know the first rule of twins.  Everything must always be exactly equal.   Two toddlers walking? I’m not that crazy.  Abandon Sobeys and load whining toddlers back into car.    

2:55 pm:  Hey look kids, a school bus.   "Mama, could a school bus protect us from coyotes? " Um sure, why not.

3:05 pm:  Arrive in the Superstore parking and select one of their lovely 2-seater shopping carts.  Twins loaded up.   "Weeeeeee!!  We’re going really fast.  This is so much fun, Mama!"

3:10 pm:  Produce aisle.   "Apples! Bananas! Cucumbers!"  Explain logically and respectfully why twins cannot eat any of the delicious but unwashed and sold by weight produce.  Instead offer the selection of pre-packaged, processed snacks I’ve brought with me. 

3:11 pm : Rebellion. 

3:12 pm: Screaming is starting to attract attention.  Bedlam finally quelled by quick side trip to cookie aisle.  Box hastily ripped open and cookies doled out.

3:15 pm: Continue shopping in blissful, blissful silence.  Oblivious to the glares from other parents whose children also want cookies.  Ha ha! Sucks to be you.

3:20 pm: Ear splitting screech. “That’s my cookie!”  It's OK Charles, you can pick another one from the box.  “No, I just want the one that Becca has.”  Here have 2 more cookies, just please stop clawing at your sister's mouth.   “Get it out of her tummy!!!!  GET! GET! GET!”   Use fabulous slight-of-hand skills and pretend to extract a cookie from Becca’s mouth.  Crisis averted.     

3:25 pm: “I wanna walk!  I’m a big kid!”  No Honey, it’s too crowded.  “But we will be careful Mama.  We will stay with the cart.”

3:26 pm:  They didn’t stay with the cart.

3:28 pm:  Runaway toddlers rounded up and stuffed kicking and screaming back into the cart.  Seat belts on and pulled really, really tight. 

3:33 pm:  “Thirsty!  Mama, I’m so thirsty!”

3:35 pm:  “Pee!!  I have to go pee!!”  Red alert.  Drop everything and weave cart through obstacle course on quickest route to the washrooms.  Futile effort to convince B to utilize the facilities despite terrifying auto-flush toilet.  Ok fine, just pee in your pull-up. 

3:45 pm: Back in the cart, happy and singing loudly.  “Jingle bells, Batman smells”  Much better than screaming right?  Apparently not, judging by the glares from passerbys.  Lighten up tight-asses! 

3:50 pm:  Visit to the lobster tank (aka “the monsters”).  “Mama, they look mad.”  Well, wouldn’t you?

3:58 pm: Referee argument over whether Baa Baa Blacksheep is "Funny" or "Kinda mean". 

4:00 pm:  “Poop!!  I made poop!”  F@&K!!!!  What kind of moron parent forgets to bring the diaper bag?  Agonizing long trek to the far corner of the store to grab a box of diapers and wipes.  Good lord child, what did you eat?   Back to the washroom.  More hysteria over the autoflush toilets.  Guess what! The industrial hand dryers are also terrifying.  Charles lets out a high-pitched shriek that would put a classically trained soprano to shame.   Long soothing cuddle on the bathroom bench.

4:15 pm: To the checkout…finally.  Empty the cart with one hand, the other busy restraining twins trying to climb out.  “But Mama, we just want to help you!”   Mobilize toddlers to transfer groceries to onto the belt.   Inefficient but terribly cute and elicits smiles and coos of delight from other customers.   Hey, this is going great, we should do this more often.  Tug of war over eggs…disaster.  

4:18 pm: Scramble to bag own groceries, sooth dual temper tantrums and avoid slipping on the remains of the eggs.  Bottleneck.  Groceries pile up on the checkout behind me.  Why why why, do I keep coming back here to this awful store?   More glares.   A few understanding smiles.   Finally groceries loaded, tears dried and toddlers back in cart.  

4:25 pm: Let's not even mention the chaos that ensued in the parking lot.

4:35 pm: Referee argument about whether a kangaroo could protect us from coyotes. Have I mentioned that my kids are terrified of coyotes?

4:45 pm:  Back home...finally.  Groceries put away.  Time to start dinner?  Screw it, I’ll order a pizza.   

4:50 pm:  Time to go get Daddy!  Hey, do I hear water running?  Check the bathroom to discover that Charles had blocked the sink drain with a towel and water is now pouring onto the floor.

4:51 pm:  Return to the kitchen for a mop only to discover that the twins have dumped an entire box of goldfish crackers on the floor and are now methodically stomping on each one, giggling lke maniacs.

5:00 pm:  Somehow get water and crackers cleaned up and twins buckled in the car in time to leave for the airport.

5:01 pm:  Cheer myself up by imagining what it must be like for parents of triplets.



Chowing down on the cookies.



Checking the list



Back in the car, pretending to sleep while I load up the groceries
...apparently exhausted from their 'ordeal'.



The much coveted truck cart at Sobeys.  ("the horn on the truck goes beep beep beep")

Terrible twos

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good,
She was very, very good
But when she was bad she was horrid.

-Longfellow

My dad used to quote that poem a lot when I was a kid.  It must have been written about a two-year old.  One minute so sweet and grown-up and then the next …Holy mother of crap, what is wrong with my children?   This past few weeks, we’ve spent WAY too much time on the devil-spawn challenging end of the spectrum. 

Sounds like they're pretty good at dayhome and they’re mostly angels for Greg but with me, it’s mayhem.  It’s like they save up all their frustration and stress during the day and then let it all out for Mama. 

The top 5 issues:

1)   Random physical attacks:  Charles can’t resist mauling Becca (tickling, wrestling, pushing etc).  Sometimes it’s in anger but mostly it’s playful like running up behind her and tackling her to the ground.  When I intervene, C protests innocently, “I was just wrestling” or  “I was just playing London Bridge.”  Becca gets her shots in too but I worry more about Charles; he weighs like 25% more and it’s hard for B to defend herself.  Good thing she’s a fast runner.   She’ll come tearing towards me with her arms up “MAMA!!  Protect me from the Charles!! ”

2)  Fighting over toys:  This is nothing new but lately it’s reached epic proportions.  There is no reasoning with them.  Screaming, hitting, throwing – at one point, Charles picked up his airplane riding toy OVER HIS HEAD and flung it across the room.  Scary stuff.  Even reading books was off the menu because they’d fight over the pictures.  “That’s Becca’s tree.”  “No, it’s Charles’ tree”  “NO, BECCA’S!!!”  “NO CHARLES’!!!”   <Ear-splitting high-pitched scream>

3)  Fighting over me: You’d think they’d be used to sharing me…but no.  

4)  Fighting over everything else:  Dishes, chairs, blankets, car seats, shoes, clothes.  You name it, my kids will argue about it.  And it doesn’t matter if we have two identical items, they’ll still fight over them.  I’d been warned about that but I didn’t truly appreciate how frustrating it would be.  I mean c’mon!  They are EXACTLY the same. 

Greg did come up with a pretty good system last month, to label the identical toys or dishes with a B or a C.  They can recognize “their letter” and that has prevented many disputes.   Although I did catch Becca chasing Emma with a marker the other day. “But I just wanted to put a B on her” … presumably so she could lay a proprietary claim.

5)  Do-overs: I understand this is fairly normal with toddlers but I still find it bizarre and sometimes laughable.   One of the worst recent incidents was when I foolishly removed B’s diaper in the bathroom instead of on the change table.  She had a complete melt-down, insisting that I should dig the dirty diaper out of the trash, put it back on her and the re-change her “properly”.  Full blown temper tantrum when I said no. Laying in a teary heap in front of the garbage wailing "Do-over! Do-Over!"

In a word, life has been chaos.  And at times I’ve been frankly ashamed at my lack of patience.  I used to be so patient.  I mean, my God, I waited for 5 years to have these kids, shouldn't I be more grateful?  Why does this stuff get under my skin so much?

But then last week, it was like a switch went off.  The twins played together for a full hour with no intervention.  No screaming. No mauling. No fighting.  It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen - brought tears to my eyes.   They played an elaborate series of games.  First a version of house where they pretended to be Mommy and Daddy taking their “cars” to buy groceries, then took turns putting each other to bed.   Then they built a house…which was really just a random pile of crap but cute nonetheless.  Then they built a ‘waterslide’ out of blankets on the stairs and slid down it.  Then they packed pretend lunches in their backpacks and went on a pretend trip to the playground.  

Their 'house' (AKA pile of random crap).  A comment on my housekeeping skillz?  Probably.

It was amazing.  They were completely different kids.   I was too dumbfounded to think of grabbing the camera to take a video.   I’ve heard about this phenomena.  That’s supposed to be one the benefits of twins, that they entertain each other and you get all this free time, yada yada yada.  To date it’s been something of a myth.   I mean, sure they played together but it required my constant supervision and mediation to avoid WWIII.

Since that night I’ve seen more and more glimpses these strange, new well-behaved children.  Not all the time but it gives me hope that we’ve made it over the hump and we will soon leave the terrible twos behind us.  

And when we do, I'll miss this exciting stage of their development, watching them blossom into independence, learning to navigate this bumpy road we call life.  Ha ha... just kidding.  I won't miss it one bit.

Cheers,

Sandra 

Quote of the day

I found the twins standing out on our back deck with C clutching a plastic T-ball bat. 

Me:  Hey, you guys aren’t allowed outside without Mama or Dada.  It’s too dangerous.

Charles:  But Mama, I will protect Becca from da Coyotes.  I will hit dem in da head with dis bat.

Um yeah, easy there De Niro.