As I trudged on, exhausted and weak, I reminded myself that this HAD to be done.  My family needed me to do this.  I stopped for a moment, dizzy.  The sounds around me were deafening:  A child screaming, a woman laughing, a man talking loudly, a baby crying.  The noises echoed in my head, and I winced at how loud it all seemed.

“I can do this,” I whispered to myself.  “I have to do this.”  I glanced around for an escape, and I could see it vaguely in the distance.  I mustered up all my strength and continued on my mission.

I’m a domestic soldier.  The mission:  Grocery Shopping.  My troops:  K Company, short for “Kid Company.”

Oh, all right—I might be acting a bit melodramatic.  Grocery shopping, though, can be miserable.  Grocery shopping with three children ages 4, 2, and 4 months can feel like battle.  (For mission security purposes, we’ll call them Big Guy, Little Guy, and Baby Girl.)

My grocery shopping mission begins about a week before I actually go.  This would be the allotted time to gather coupons, write out menu plans, dig through the deep freeze and pantry to see what we already have, and make the actual list.  The list then gets separated into three groups:  Aldi, Wal-mart, and Sam’s Club.

The day of, or D-day as I like to call it, consists of getting everyone loaded up into the van, dropping my husband off at work, and then beginning our tour o’ stores at 8:00 a.m. sharp.  And here is our battle tale…

At our first store, I strap the baby into the Baby Bjorn, and I grab two little boys’ hands as we enter the store.  Big Guy states he doesn’t want to ride in the cart.  This prompts Little Guy to SHOUT that he refuses to ride in the cart, too.  The next thirty minutes will consist of me saying, “Put that down!”  or “No, that’s not on the list!” or “Don’t EAT that!”

While strolling along the produce section, I glance over to see Little Guy take a huge bite out of an avocado—and then promptly spit it out all over the floor.  Big Guy, meanwhile, has been trying to tell me about the dream he had where a T-Rex came over to eat cake with him for the last ten minutes.  We approach the cashier, and I explain that I’ll pay for the avocado since Little Guy decided to taste-test it.

“So…do you want the avocado?”  she asks, visibly confused.

“No.  I don’t want the half-eaten avocado.  I want these three fully put-together avocados.  But I’ll pay for the half-eaten avocado,”  I say, trying to keep it together.

“But you don’t want the avocado…?”

I blink.  What is this, rocket science?

“No.  I don’t want THAT avocado.  I want THESE avocados,”  I say, holding up the bag of fully put-together avocados.

“Okay…” she says, still confused.

I will later check my receipt and see that I was charged for six avocados.  Ah, yes—I can see how easy it was to make that mistake.

Our next mission is to bag our groceries.  This will consist of me just chucking groceries into bags in any random order in an effort to get out of there before one of the boys manages to fall off the grocery bagging area—or tries to eat someone else’s produce.  I will later find my bread underneath the twelve-pound turkey.

Onto our second stop at a nationally known megastore—which will remain nameless.  (Or “Wal-mart,” as I like to call it.)

Am I the only one wanting to throw elbows the minute you step foot in that store?  I realize that doing battle with K Company in tow might get ugly.

After cruising the aisles for fifteen minutes, I realize we’ve got a problem:  Baby Girl just had a diaper blowout.  I weigh my options:  try to change her diaper in a stall the size of a kitchen cupboard with two active little boys or let it go until we get home.  I look at the cart full of food, most of it frozen.  Hey, she’s asleep—I’m not going to risk it.

An hour later, we make it up to the checkout lane, and Little Guy begins trying to lick the conveyor belt.  Yeah—I said “lick.”

My job now consists of trying to shield Big Guy from being traumatized by the barrage of magazine covers dripping with cleavage and bold headlines. His attention is diverted as he begins putting items on the conveyor belt.  At this moment, I try and help Little Guy put the glass jar of olive oil up on the conveyor belt to which he screams, “I DO IT MYSELF, MOMMY!”

I smile at the cashier. “Two year-olds,” I say.  “Gotta love their independence, right?”

She stares at me without smiling.

The woman in front of me who is currently paying whips out her checkbook.  She might as well have pulled out a rock and chisel.  A checkbook?!  Who pays with a checkbook these days?  Do I LOOK like I have an extra forty-five seconds to stand in line with two energetic boys who could pass for monkeys with ADD?  A CHECKBOOK!

“Did you find everything okay?”  My silent ranting is interrupted, and I glance up to see the cashier staring at me, blowing a bubble with her gum.

“Yes, thank you.   I did, however, lose my sanity back in the bread aisle, so if you could just toss it in the Lost and Found when you find it, I’ll pick it up next trip,” I say, digging around for my debit card.

She gives me an exasperated look.  “What?  What happened in the bread aisle?” she asks.

“Hey, you know what?  Nevermind,”  I smile, realizing I still have yet another store to hit on the way home.  I better save my best material for later.

She holds up a toothbrush in the package.  “Do you know how much this is?”  she asks, looking pained.

“Uh, let me see here,” I say, running through the photo-catalog of price tags in my minds.  “I’m pretty sure it was $1.24,” I tell her.  “And seriously—what’s up with tooth brush prices?  Do they REALLY need to price them so high?  It’s ridiculous!”  She stares at me.

“So…you don’t remember how much it was?” she asks.

“It was $1.24.”

“I’m going to need to check the price,” she sighs.  “Do you want to go grab one with a price on it or do you want me to?”

I glance at the two children next to me hopping up and down, and I look pointedly at the baby I’m wearing.

“Really?  We need to check the price of a toothbr—Hey, you know what?  Just leave it out.  I’m completely fine with cavities at this point.  A cavity might seriously be the highlight of this day,” I say.

I swipe my card, reminding myself that I just saved the woman behind me an extra forty-five seconds, and we travel out to the car.  As I put the key in the ignition, I think about the next store on our mission.

And I then declare the rest of the day as “Monday Funday!” to the joy of my two boys.  I’ll finish the mission later that night when my husband gets home—or as I like to call him, “Reinforcements.”

When Delena isn’t throwing elbows at Wal-mart or bathing Little Guy’s tongue in hand sanitizer, she enjoys her life as a wife, mother, photographer, and domestic soldier.  She is grateful to God for His blessings and for a sense of humor in all things.  She documents her tales of triumph and woe, shares a few recipes, and laments about motherhood at http://itsonmyto-dolist.blogspot.com.

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