Tuesday, September 11, 2007

On second thought, maybe those paranoid moms are onto something...

I have scoffed at the moms who use these things. Silently. But still. What's next? Enclosing your child in a plastic bubble where he or she can live in a private ecosystem?

Haven can now sit in a shopping cart. What a great convenience! No more heavy car seat to heft out of the car and onto the shopping cart. No more standing on my tip toes to see over the car seat - shopping cart apparatus, narrowly avoiding collisions. With his new sitting skills, it's just a matter of swinging the little guy out of his car seat and into the shopping cart.

Haven is in the phase of tasting everything. This includes shopping carts. At the grocery store this weekend, Dave and I did all we could to keep his mouth off of the bar, maintaining at least one of our own fists over the bar at all times. To no avail. Haven has pink eye.

I could chalk this up to daycare and give all those babies the evil eye (no pun intended) for infecting my baby. But ... a thirty-minute spree in a shopping cart and a crust-covered eye two days later. I'm thinking a thanks to the grocery store is in order.
So, I just might join the ranks of those germ-freak moms. Those of you who already use a shopping cart cover, please don't be offended by all the names I've called you. You probably aren't sitting home hoping you don't catch pink eye from your 7-month old baby.

9 comments:

david hayes said...

Maybe he's on to something. We should all taste our shopping carts from time to time...

merry said...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not Baby Havy! Not the PINK EYE!!!! Linds used to get pink eye every year that we went to lake george. You didn't toss that baby into the lake on your hike did you?

Janet said...

Fight the urge! (Sorry to all the moms who swear by the shopping cart cover) Babies have survived for a long time without them. I support whatever you decide, but you're not a bad mom if Haven gets sick from time to time because you let him leave the house in this world full of germs.

Christin said...

okay. so here's my two cents worth, since I know you're just holding your breath until I speak. *wink*
When Charis was born, she was transported to a large state NICU. Before discharging her, a nurse gave us all sorts of information. One of which will stick with me for all time: Tests have been done on shopping carts to see how dirty or clean they were. She said that the results of this research was this: they found large amounts of urine, fecal matter, and semen.

Now I haven't bought one of those things b/c I'm cheap. But I do wipe off those handles with disinfectant hand wipes. I just can't allow my child, in good conscience, to mouth someone else's ...uh...stuff.

*insert gagging sound*

Jolanthe said...

Jen -

I see you on Christin's blog so thought I'd stop by. :) I will say - those cart shoppers are great for actually keeping your kids locked in tighter than ft. drum - especially when they start becoming little houdini babies...trust me... :)

Foxy5 said...

Well I rank with those Mom's that own one of those nifty little seat things. I got it for baby #3, actually my mom did. What else do you buy a 3 month old for Christmas? I had heard Christin's gross details on the shopping cart before and thought this was a GOOD idea. (by the way, you should ask her about flushing the toilet and the safety of your toothbrush) Baby's suck on anything and everything they can get their mouth on. Yes, they will be exposed to germs and they will get sick.... but if we can knowingly keep them from sucking on some other baby's nastiness, or God help us, something Christin mentioned, I'm all for it. I have noticed that some grocery stores around here now carry some kind of lysol type wipe next to the shopping carts. If my mom wouldn't have shelled out the money for a cart cover thats probably what I would be using. Sorry to hear about the pink eye though. Hope he gets better soon.

Family W said...

I know, but once you've watched Oprah take a cotton swab to the handle of a shopping cart and find fecal matter.......ummmm... the shopping cart covers then become an absolute necessity! :)

Jen said...

I see that mommy issues are going to get me the most comments. ;)

Fecal matter?! Are we the only people in this world who wash their hands? Or use toilet paper, for that matter?! Gross.

Christin said...

*laughing sooo hard*

yes, thank you Valerie for putting a plug in for my comments concerning toilets and dental hygiene. I about fell off my chair I laughed so hard.

See Jen... you ask a question about mommyhood and people come running. :D

still laughing.