CART!

I fondly remember the days where I could just stop somewhere, run in and run out. My back has been acting up big time the last month and I am having a lot of difficulty with the car seat. This means that if I want to get a money order I have to unstrap Gus from his seat, carry his exuberant self to the nearest CART! hold him with one hand out of reach of said CART! while I dig for wipes which I never seem to have handy. Once I find the wipes, I pop the container one handed, pull out a string of 10 wipes (they never come out one at a time), use my teeth to separate one from its brothers, wipe the CART! handle down. Put the wipes somewhere till I can stuff them back in the container and prepare to wrestle the baby into the CART!

Now comes the fun part. I position Gus feet down and pointing in the direction of the leg openings in the CART! As I direct his legs towards the openings, he notices that he is going in a CART! and bends at the waist, grabbing the handle and smashing face first into the handhold. He glues his hands, lips and teeth to the handle, resisting mightily my efforts to pry him loose so I can get his feet in. Somewhere around six months his hands grew a layer of that goo that makes those weird hands on string stick to the wall. This has resulted in a new level of difficulty in separating him from undesirable objects. They aren't really stuck to his hands but there is this weird adhesion...anyway, I am getting off track. I give up, let him gnaw on the plastic while I wrestle with his butt and legs and freaky long toes that seems to get caught in every one of the little bars on the CART! I can't wait till winter when he is wearing socks. I get him in the CART! Detach his mouth long enough to buckle him in and let him smash face first back into the handle when released where he will most likely remain till we leave the store.

The last time I actually went for groceries I might as well have dropped breadcrumbs detailing where I had been. There was a trail of slobber everywhere I had gone...Have I hit the rice and pasta aisle yet? Hmm, the floor is dry, must not have been here yet.

This little routine is really exhausting when I am literally going to the store for one thing. Why bother with the CART! you ask? First, he can't stand so I can't just put him down for a second. Skip back up two paragraphs and read the part about sticky hands. Now let me add his propensity for maximum destruction in the minimum allowed time. Holding him in the store, I have to walk down the center of the aisle so he doesn't sweep all the product off the shelves. Even if you don't put him near anything easy to destroy he works an excellent game of subterfuge and manipulation by playing the disinterested baby till you let your guard down.

For example, I tell the lady I need a money order. She tells me the amount, I pull out my wallet, hand her the cash and wait for my receipt and money order. If I don't put my wallet out of reach immediately, it is in his hands either being coated in drool immediately (if I'm lucky) or he is taking everything out of it before I figure out where it went. While I am rescuing and drying my wallet, the lady has put the money order on the counter within reach of the child. By the time I notice the money order, it is balled up and stuffed into his mouth. If you hold the wallet out of reach, he is trying to eat the credit card reader. As one arm is holding him, you bring the hand holding the wallet to pry him loose and tada! he has the wallet and you are trying to wipe the credit card reader and apologize and he has scattered the contents of your wallet and grabbed their container of pens and you take a really really deep breath and vow that the next time you will make your husband get the stupid money order.

And if you need to sign anything forget it. Cashiers never hold the paper still, they just stand and smirk while you struggle so you are forced to use the hand on the arm that is holding the child. This puts the kid in reach of both pen and paper, two of their favorite toys.

I think it will be nice when he can stand, then all I will have to worry about it is chasing him when he takes off. Until then we will use the CART! the best teething toy ever invented and amazing for the sheer size of it and its way of putting a buffer between children and shelves.