The One Kid Rule

A long time ago, I made a new rule. It's called the one kid rule. It only applies to going to the store with Mom. It's for my sanity. It is for productivity. It is for safety. It's for budget control. It is for the opportunity to have one on one time with whichever child is with me at the time. It has been a beautiful thing in my life. It's just so....priceless.

Recently, though, I made an exception to the rule. One time. Here are the results:

Ryan is an energetic child with the attention span of a squirrel. He's usually good and obedient but he get's a little squirrely if we are gone for more than hour. So I make sure the store attending adventures he is a participant of is short and of quality.

Aaron is lovingly nicknamed 'houdini man' because he likes to disappear. Not a good thing when a certain parent is looking at the yogurt trying to decide which flavor and how many would be sufficient for each family member. Poof...he's no where to be found. Then a certain parent is yelling out his name running up and down the aisles in a crazed panic trying to locate and put an end to the disappearance act. At which point, her energy is all used up and is ready to go home. Very unproductive. Usually a trip to 7-eleven is about the right store trip for him. Small store. Small aisles. Slurpee machine. Need I say more?

I needed a few things for dinner. It was going to be a quick trip to store. It was a great time for Ryan to come along. As we were headed out the door, I caught a glimpse of the sad eyes of a five year old who has been getting left behind too often as of late. His plea to come along pulled at my heart and I gave in. How bad can it be with such a quick trip to the store, I asked myself.

As all three of us walked into the store, I was feeling pretty confident that this was going to be painless and easy. I grabbed the cart and off we went. We cruised the hot dog bun aisle. Each boy had to grab their 'own' package and then Aaron said we needed a third one because we always run out which I agreed was correct so it went into the cart. As we headed over to the hot dogs, each boy ran to them and announced that they were getting them, shoving the other aside. I settled that as we need two packages...one for each boy. I had a painful thought that a pattern was being set right before my eyes.

As we headed over to the chips, guess what happened? Yep, each boy was in desperate need of a different flavor and since they had about crushed the bags in their little hands, I felt responsible to purchase both bags. (Grace thinks I bought faulty bags of chips but really it was a five year old and a seven year old that had a hand in crumbly them up properly.) Then, we headed over to the juice aisle. Yep, we ended up with two.

Now let me tell you about the ice cream which I had promised the children we would get since I made them pass up the first ice cream truck cruise down our street this season. We took the cart down the fun aisle, the land of rainbows and lollipops. One boy wanted ice cream sandwiches, the other wanted Jell-o pops. The next thing I saw was both boys on the floor in a scuffle. One in a headlock and the other with his arms wrapped around his brother trying to break free. (Note to self: do not ever, ever, ever bring both boys at the same time to store ever, ever, ever...again unless one needs to remember how much fun it REALLY is.)

As I lovingly and gently took them by the arm to break up the cute little squabble. I told them since we were going to purchase two packages, each would get to choose. Perhaps, mommy should have thrown something darkish, chocolatish Hagen dazish into the cart or maybe twoish for me to eat before I got home!

We, then, went to the cashier to check out. Both boys started grabbing things out of the cart to throw onto the conveyor belt before the other one could grab it. The buns were a bit more mangled, the chips were more crumbly and so on. As I was trying to save the merchandise from any more evidence that is was handled with such care, I heard the lady behind me softly say in a relieved sort of way that she was glad she left her boys at home.

It was quite an eventful trip. One I won't forget for a long, long, long time. It's always an adventure with two very lively boys. Now to explain to my husband why we have two of everything....