adventures running errands....

I just thought I'd share a few tidbits from our morning, just to showcase how even the simplest of tasks can go sideways. If you are a parent of a toddler, you might nod in recognition as you read along, perhaps even enduring a few eye twitches as you re-live moments you had blocked out from your past. If you don't have children, you may take this moment to high five your partner on your chosen path of ease.
I am incredibly grateful to the grocery stores who have parental parking by the grocery store entrance.
I unloaded my  "precious cargo" from my car and transferred her into the seat of a grocery cart. So far, we've got this! I am pretty sure passerbys thought I was some sort of pro on the speed/ease of my transferral skills, they were just too shy to tell me.
As soon as we step foot into the store, she no longer wants to be in my sad excuse for wheels, for she has laid eyes upon the giant "is it a car or is it a grocery cart" heavy duty machinery parked by the front entrance. So, I transfer her in and leave my other cart in it's place, hoping someone else will return it for the shiny quarter - in those moments, I see it as my version of paying it forward.
I'm trying to maneuver this "so called cart" down the aisles, because lets face it, she is not really doing much in the way of helping with that sad excuse for a steering wheel. I think she is turning it with her pinky, mocking me with this decision. We were down the third aisle when she took it upon herself to slide off the seat and get wedged where her feet should rest. I have to add that the cart did not have a working seat belt. A feature, which I didn't think would be a problem, until this very moment, where it became a huge problem.
She was stuck.
Her body was partially wedged under the seat. I felt like I was trying to unwind a contortionist. Is that a foot? How did it get in that angle?
And, everytime I tried to gently pull her out, she'd lose her mind. I am proud to say that I kept calm in the midst of everything. Strangely calm. As if I was helping some poor mother out, who just wasn't here at the moment. I finally got her out, it was an achievement of great proportions, and I looked around down the aisle, half expecting some applause to break out.
My hand was sliced and bled spectacularly onto her hoodie (which, I had just laundered this very morning). I opened up a box of crackers in my cart to give her something to distract her. Is this shoplifting? I don't know. I'm paying for it, but it hasn't been paid for just yet. We got to the cashier and I asked for a kleenex to help with my (quite obviously) bleeding hand. I think his response was, "do you have one of our reward cards?"
I loaded the groceries into the car and decided to tire her out at the mall's indoor play area. So, back through the grocery store we go to get the to mall. She was even holding my hand and walking at a normal pace! This in itself was a huge victory. She usually runs, like really quickly, from any point A to point B. But before I could raise the roof, I looked down and noticed she only had on one shoe (one of the two shoes I had just gotten her yesterday). Back through the maze of aisles we go, until I spot it, sitting in the behemoth of a cart. A few customers said, "ah that's great love, you found her shoe!" I felt like hugging them for noticing that yes, I did, I found her shoe! I felt like holding the shoe high in the air and announcing over the store's PA System. "Attention shoppers, my daughter and I might be covered in blood, and she might only be wearing one shoe at the moment, but we survived another errand together!"