Complex math + simple logic = chaos

Fourteen minutes and the clock is ticking.

Calculating a complex series of equations in my head — subtracting the two-hour nap she missed that afternoon from the protein content of the breakfast she ate that morning, and dividing it all by the number of Cheerios left behind in snap-top container rolling around on the floor of the car — I surmise I have less than a quarter of an hour to procure a week’s worth of groceries before storm clouds set in and we are washed away in a torrent of tears.

These days I’d rather scrape the remnants of spilled leftovers from the fridge and smear it on saltine crackers than take Ittybit shopping. A one-toddler, one-mother wiggling circus, I play the juggler as she empties the cart of what I put in it, clapping and smiling as if I were one of the brothers Ringling and she were a trained seal. And that’s a good trip. I have collected a series of photographs of the bad ones, which I’ve titled “Hates the Dairy Aisle.”



I could kick myself for taking for granted her happy, amenable days when her fussiness could be calmed by the vibrations of the cart and a kind word from a cashier. I could also kick myself for leaving the provisions list at home.

I unbuckle her from the car seat, praying silently that the truck-shaped shopping cart hasn’t already been driven off by another toddler. I try not to picture myself pushing the cartoon-inspired cart, which I believe was purposefully designed to be about three centimeters smaller than the width of every aisle in the store just for the sake of amusing the single-serving shoppers in the world. Instead I have relinquished my “cool” status and accepted the inevitability that I will likely knock over the Pepsi pyramid one of these days because I know without this dastardly device I will have to shave off five minutes from my shopping time.

Relief. The cart is there, revved and ready to go. Zoom, we’re off. First stop: produce aisle. Ittybit stops honking long enough to yell out her desires. “Peppers. No! Red peppers … nanas … oooh, aaaaaples.” She samples the broccoli before I can get it away from her and wants to hold the box of clementines on her lap. I sneak in a bag of spinach and some tomatoes and soldier on.

I feel emboldened. We have vegetables and we’re heading off to get meat. Twelve minutes to go. (It would have been 13 but I struggled with the produce bags, trying unsuccessfully to open one by rubbing my thumb and first two fingers together on the bottom end for 45 seconds before I eventually turned it over.)

Scooting to the meat section I throw my selections into the basket and push on to the bread aisle. I see the first signs of agitation and I still have six aisles to go. When she stands up in the coffee aisle and pretends to be Rose on the bow of the Titanic through the front windshield of the cart, I consider taking a shortcut to the milk aisle and calling it quits.

“No,” I say aloud, “WE CAN DO THIS.”

Next stop: Frozen foods. To squeals of delight from the peanut gallery, I toss frozen vegetable from a three-foot distance into the basket. “YAY, peas!!!!; ”Hooray for corn, “Ooooree, COE!!!” And her beloved Ice cream gets an entire chorus, “Ipeem! Ipeeem! IIIIIIIIIpeeeeeem!”

Milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs … we’ve rounded third and are on our way home. Ittybit flirts with the checkout clerk a little as she helps empty the cart onto the conveyor. I am silently congratulating her by stroking her hair while the groceries are tallied and the clerk turns her attention back to me.

“That will be 135 dollars and 57 cents.”

Oh no, where’s my wallet?

Where else would it be but at home with shopping list!

Now it’s my turn to cry.