Yesterday I remembered why I do not grocery shop with both kids. It raises my blood pressure to an alarming rate. At least it gives me fodder for this blog.
Haven played with (i.e. tormented) Maiya in the car attached to the shopping cart. She screamed while I maniacally attempted to shove the grocery bags into the cart. It seemed like the cashier had put every item in it's own bag. She was stone faced about the shriek Maiya was giving. A few passers by said, "aw, don't cry."
Wow, that's really helpful, thank you.(It was so hectic that I didn't get to enjoy how much I had saved, which is usually the highlight of grocery shopping. Later, though, I celebrated that I had gotten three boxes of brand-name cereal and a gallon of organic milk for five dollars.)
I mean, seriously, there was nobody in that store, employed or not, who could help me for ten seconds of their life? Sometimes I am shocked by the lack of kindness from strangers. Especially when my blood is
boiling and I am convinced my stressors are the real problems in the world.
Perhaps, I guess, there is a slight chance that Maiya's cry does not raise blood pressure in every person in the world. Since she isn't their responsibility. Since it isn't their job to assess her cry and meet her needs. But still, somebody could have lent a helping hand. Instead, it felt like everyone was lending a very unhelpful finger.
Just when I was ready to give up on the decency of humanity, an older woman saddled up next to me as we pushed our carts into the parking lot. She told me she had toys for the kids. Toys were not exactly what I needed at the moment, but she was so sincere. Coincidentally, her car was parked next to mine. I unloaded Maiya into her car seat, then Haven to his. Meanwhile, the woman opened her trunk. She looked at me with a twinkle and said, "What would they like?" She had big bags of stuffed animals. My first thought was that I did not want to bring potentially germ-infested stuffed animals from an unknown source into my car or my children's lives, but I chose to look at her gesture as what it was: kind and generous. Just the traits that I needed
somebody to possess at that moment.
We drove home with our groceries, a lion, a tiger and a dog that barked the whole way.
My little girl is one year old. I have a million feelings about that, including pride that Dave and I survived our first year with two children, and serenity that the toddler years are in full swing. That's right, I said serenity and toddlers in the same sentence. While infancy is cute in many ways, I embrace the new level of independence brought into our lives by toddlerhood. 
