We walked past the automatic door for the supermarket, and Ian exclaimed, "Wow. It’s Shop Rite. Mom,  yagonna buy some beeeer?"

Heads swiveled around to check out the alcoholic mom. Damn, I’m glad that that kid has learned to speak.

I’m managing the kids and the job much better than last semester. It helps to be only teaching two classes, instead of four. Ian’s schedule is a lot less complicated, since all his therapy happens at his school. With slightly less on my plate, I’m not walking into class with two hours of sleep anymore, but I’m still putting in a lot of evening and weekend hours. I try to keep school hours for my work and not squander that time at the gym or doing chores. That’s why the boys were with me on this trip to Shop Rite.

The boys love coming to the supermarket with me. First, we have to go to the "meat computer" or the deli machine where you can type in your lunch meat order instead of waiting on the line behind the old people ordering a 1/4 lb. of the white Land of Lakes cheese and a 1/4 lb. of Wonderbar bologna and a 1/4 lb. of the week old pasta salad. The boys fight over pushing the buttons. They have to be watched very carefully, because one wrong move, and you’re stuck with $40 worth of cheese cubes.

Then, we moved over to the chip aisle for the chips that come in a cylinder. I don’t know why we have to do that with the boys, but that’s the routine. After the chips, we work from right to left through the store. Juice boxes. Apple juice. Milk boxes. Cheese Nips. Lettuce. Broccoli. Pineapple. Rice Krispies. and so on.

We had a big shopping agenda. Steve’s been doing the weekend shopping lately, and he only buys what’s on the list. So, we were low on all sorts of other supplies that I buy in bulk on sale. Steve doesn’t buy in bulk on sale. And then we missed the shopping trip this weekend. I have been hobbling together some lame lunches for the kids during the week, but then we ran out of milk this morning. The kids could have the old waffles, but I needed milk for my coffee. I sent Jonah over to the neighbor’s house with an empty cup and sad eyes. "Momma can’t function without a cup of jo."

I can’t have the kids begging for two consecutive days, so that’s why we had the mandatory shopping trip after school today.

Shopping with kids isn’t the easiest task. Maybe if I had some of those robotic kids who hold onto the cart, it would be okay. But mine are rather hyper. Even at 8, Jonah doesn’t walk in a straight line. In the crowded store, he was doing a walk-walk-spin-walk-walk-spin. I kept yelling at him to knock it off, but he wasn’t listening. Ian was running through the store to find his favorite foods. He would come running back to me with a big smile and a box of Lego Flip Flop waffles. The box would get thrown in the cart, and then he was off to hunt for Gogurts.

When I shop with the kids, I end up with a lot more crap in the cart than healthy stuff. I do pick out some of the worst offenders, but there’s only so many Spiderman Fruit Roll-Ups that you can discretely toss into the meat cooler without the food gatherers figuring things out.

Buying food while herding boys is exhausting. It’s a little sad that the one thing that never ended up in the shopping cart was beer.