Supermarket Sweep- November 29, 2010
Charlotte and I made our first trip to the grocery store last week. We needed to get supplies to eat batter and pie filling make Thanksgiving pies. Plus, some staples were dwindling after home cooked meals from family and friends were eaten up.
My mom always told me how when I was a baby she would put me in the produce scale at the local Piggly Wiggly. I was anxious to carry on this charmingly redneck tradition. Plus, my baby gets heavier everyday! (7lbs. 13ozs. at birth, 8lbs. 2 oz. at two weeks. At 3+ weeks she could be at 9lbs!)
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| I’m “Big on the Pig!” Okay, not really. There’s not even one in Raleigh anymore. It’s now a cafe and gift shop. Naturally I went somewhere now yuppie that was formerly hippie. |
I tucked Charlotte in her car seat and off we went to Trader Joe’s. Mom called as I was on the way and I told her where I was going. She asked if I had brought my Moby Wrap. (That thing has been a godsend in the first few weeks!) Mom was skeptical when I told her I was just going to keep her in car seat and put her in the front part of the cart. I smiled as she then re-told me the Piggly Wiggly story.
Mom had reason to be skeptical. The seat didn’t fit correctly in the front of the cart and she was too small for the carts with the baby seats attached, so I had to put her and the whole car seat in the large part of the cart. I wheeled her in, an ameteur mom, feeling quite foolish.
I looked up and saw a mom with a baby a few months older sitting in one of the carts with the baby seats. I flagged down this total stranger and asked her about how the whole car-seat-in-the-cart thing works. I explained that it was our first shopping trip. I think the desperation on my face told her that. She was very kind and we tried some different manuvers to fit the seat in the front of the cart to no avail. I thanked her and smiled sheepishly as I laughed about how I would just have to put the groceries around her. She gave me a knowing smile that said “Don’t worry. It gets easier.”
Charlotte and I made it work. I doubled over in laughter when I saw my tiny baby tucked in with the deli meat and bananas.
We got home and toasted many other mother-daughter shopping trips with some milk. Trader Joe’s didn’t have a produce scale, but she felt about as heavy as the bag of flour for our pies.
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Girl you make me laugh! Justin is 5 months old (and my second child) and I still put him in the big part of the cart in his carseat just like you did with Charlotte. Our carseat will snap into the seat part of most carts but it's so high that I end up running into things because I can't see where I'm going. As soon as he can sit up a little better I'll prop him up in the seat. Or I'll let him sit in Travis' mini-cart. (Kidding!) But for now I just let my husband and 2-year-old do most of the shopping.
Too funny! But don't feel like an amateur just because you put your baby in the big part of the cart. I do it all the time! You'll come across lots of places that don't have carts that fit these giant car seats. And I agree with Heather, sometimes it's just easier to put them in the front – you can see so much better. So glad you are loving motherhood!!
One of the things I'd do differently if only I'd known then what I know now: scrap the "travel system." I just found it easier to leave the bucket in the car and wear him around. It's faster and less headache to unbuckle the baby and put him in the sling than to unhook the bucket, rupture several disks getting the bucket out of the car, and lose sanity trying to wrangle it into or onto the cart. The sad thing is, in no time she'll be sitting up on her own and can ride in the cart bucket-free. Probably about 5-6 months. Mine now pushes the cart for me. And when he backs the cart up, he beeps to let other shoppers know that a vehicle is in reverse.