the day I nearly, single handedly, took down the lobster tank

My big four and a half year old loves loves loves those carts with the cars attached at the grocery store. He climbs in and screams, "Wait until I buckle, Mommy!", at the top of his lungs. I then have to stand there, in the cart corral, while other shoppers attempt to pull carts from around me and my son attempts to buckle his seat belt. Which he never can, usually due to the fact that one end of the buckle is frequently chewed off, frayed, or missing alltogether. Which drives me crazy, by the way. Especially on restaurant high chairs. Why do these people think I wanted the high chair in the first place? To tie my child down. If there is no working seat belt then basically I am just setting my tiny toddler in a chair that is three and a half feet off the ground and giving him a fork with which to poke an eye out on the fall to the floor. But I digress. Back to the grocery store.

So my oldest son loves these carts. I hate them. Come on, who's with me? Those things are harder to drive than a zamboni on sand. (I actually do not know how hard or easy it might be to drive a zamboni on sand, but since it is made to drive on ice, and ice is, well, icey, I figure sand has got to be harder, right?) But he loves them. And they seat two kids, which I occasionally need. Only occasionally though because two kids at the grocery store is not my idea of fun. But what the older one does the youngest must mimic, so they both now love the car cart.

I found myself at the grocery store with my two year a few days ago. Just the two year old. Now usually, if he is alone with Mommy, my sweet little guy will sit in the seat in a regular, normal cart. The kind of cart that actually turns without dislocating a shoulder. Or at least he used to. I can cross that off the list of things he is now too "grown up" to do. International adoption often means bringing the child into your family a little older, which means those milestones come flying at you at top speed. My baby no longer wants to sit in the cart. Even if his older brother is not there he now insists on sitting in the car cart. groan.

My couple of years of driving this cart has not helped me learn anything about how to naivigate through a busy store. Within minutes of strapping Alex into the car I had hit the Clorox wipes dispenser standing by the door (which I love, by the way!). The dispenser sits atop a very thin pole, which, in my opinion, is not enough support. Had that stockboy not been standing right there to catch it...

During the shopping experience I managed to run into the apple display, two carts being pushed by unsuspecting fellow shoppers, the end cap display in the card aisle and the lobster tank. Probably the most excitement those lobsters saw all day. And don't even get me started on trying to unload those giant carts. I am just way to short to reach over the car part to the basket part. So this is what it looks like: I stand on my tippy toes by the car, squeezed between the cart and the candy bar display, leaning up and over to the basket, grab something and toss it back over the car onto the conveyor belt, all while hopping from one foot to the other as my tiny toddler alternates between pinching and tickling my lower legs.

Maybe if we all band together we can ban the use of these carts before someone gets hurt! Or at least before I pull a muscle trying to unload it...