Liam and I went to the grocery store today. Sometimes, Liam is quite cute when getting groceries and other times, well let’s just say not quite so cute. Today was a cute day with just a sprinkling of potential disaster added into the mix. You have to understand that when shopping with Liam, you have a fifty/fifty chance of coming out in one piece if you do the following two things: promise him a specific item and follow through in buying said item and two, ensure you spend only a moderate amount of time shopping and by moderate, I mean whatever Liam deems reasonable (based on his mood).

Liam choice of item was Froot Loops which we were able to buy (Thank you Lord!) and the time part, well that can sometimes get a bit tricky, as was so today. My husband Karl had given me a pretty big list to pick up and we ended up having to go back and forth through the store more than a few times in order to get everything we needed. I mistakenly thought of milk only after we arrived at checkout and by that point Liam had had the biscuit. Not only did he not want to join me in running to get the milk, he was becoming quite agitated that we didn’t have it to begin with. You know, a few years back, stuff like that wouldn’t have bothered him but these days I find him more anxious about the little things he never really noticed before. Anyway, I had one of the stock boys get me the milk while Liam started crying quite loudly and yelling out “What about milk, where is the milk?” When the boy came back with it, I realized I had forgotten two more items and because of Liam’s state of mind, he more than willingly went to get them for me (you got to love that)! Ok, so we’re good to go and the disaster is averted—we get all our stuff loaded up—this part can be stressful because I have to watch Liam and pack my groceries at the same time. Every two minutes or so, I have to move him out of the road or stop him from running up and down the back of the store. One time, he was even checking out the groceries of the woman behind us—I was grateful to see that she found it amusing.

When I get home, my older son Jacob made the cutest joke when I told him about the stock boy getting my forgotten items. He said “you should have asked him to bring you a Pina Coloda at the same time.”