Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The waiting game

I have taken Gabe to the grocery store with me pretty much every week since he's been born. The truth is that during the time span between 6 and 10 months he hated it. It was always a race to the finish, with me trying to throw as much from my list into the cart as I could before he completely melted down. It made me sad that he didn't enjoy the time out and about, despite the fact that I always tried to make sure the trip was made during a window of time when he was well fed and well rested. Nicki and I always enjoyed grocery shopping together and from the time she was a baby I would wheel her around the store teaching her all about the different foods we saw, letting her touch and hold various fruits and veggies, counting things out as I put them in the cart. We would take our time and were never in a rush. Many people would comment to me as we went along how nice it was to hear a mom talking to her child so much, making a tedious task enjoyable.

It was a fun bonding time for Nicki and I, so like I said, it made me sad that Gabe just wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. But eventually, he came around. And now we have a blast! He loves to zoom around the store and hold various boxes and cans as we go. He knows the order that I usually get items in, so as soon as we get the milk for example, he starts yelling out "Eggs!" because he knows that's what comes next. He enjoys helping me put all of our produce into little plastic bags, naming all the fruits and veggies he recognizes as we go.

After all of that fun you would think that waiting in line to pay would be a big let down, but in reality that's where we have the most fun of all. The lines are excruciatingly long at the grocery store I go to, and with no one to bag your order, it takes forever for the cashier to move on to the next customer. Today for example we got in line at 9:45 and didn't roll away with our groceries until 10:05! That's 20 minutes in line!

But Gabe and I had a fine time while we waited. As he munched on his apple, I showed him various magazine covers and asked him to name the letters from the titles. We looked at a cooking magazine and named all of the foods we recognized. We looked at the cover of Châtelaine and named all the parts of the woman's face. We checked out the clothes in Vanity Fair and all of the celebrities in US magazine. At one point I was talking to Gabe about the colors of the dresses that the women were wearing and then said "Oh no they are wearing the same dress, that's a no-no in Hollywood!" The woman behind us in line laughed and thanked me for entertaining her as well. :) She gave me a wonderful compliment, saying that it was refreshing to see a mother with so much patience. She then started to talk to Gabe and the women behind her chimed in as well, feeding him a grape and telling him what a good boy he is.

After we paid, he waved and said goodbye to both of them and I walked away feeling happy and proud that we had fun while we waited and helped a couple of other people smile too. If only I could always slow down to this speed, make waiting fun and realize that there's a learning opportunity hidden in every experience with my kids. Hopefully this will serve as a great reminder for me and maybe you too. Happy grocery shopping!

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