The Grocery Hurdle

At Cordelia's baby shower, a sweet friend was telling me that in a few months I would throw Cordie in the car seat and take her wherever.  At the time I thought she had to be lying.  New parents think that sometimes when more experienced parents tell them things.  When they tell you about the sleep loss you think they have to be exaggerating because if it was that bad people would never have second children.  Then you have a kid and the sleep situation is bad and those same parents tell you that one day it will get better and you and the baby will sleep through the night.  You don't believe them (even though they were right the first time) because it seems impossible.  When my friend told me that, I could not see any forseeable future that involved me being able to leave the house.

By December I was so stir crazy that I had to attempt to go out with the baby.  We went to the library and survived!  Over the next several months I took Cordie to church, restaurants, and family functions.  I became comfortable taking her places even if I sometimes I had to leave quickly, but the place I was still afraid of, the last the major hurdle of every day life was still looming:  the weekly grocery shopping.

Normally Mom keeps her while I do the weekly shopping and any other appointments, but she has a life and can't always do it.  I needed to put on my big girl panties and face my fear.  My big fear in doing the shopping was that Cordie would have some sort of meltdown.  The meltdown itself I thought I could handle, but I dreaded the judgmental looks of the plethora of little old women who shop in the middle of the day alongside SAHMs.  Alas, I wanted to make Ree Drummond's tomato soup and I needed ingredients!  So I girded my loins and went to look for pork loin.  And..

It was totally fine!  Who would have thunk it?  Certainly not I all the way back in November.  I know there will be days when she whines and cries for sugary cereal (which I will probably give her because I love sugary cereal more than an adult should).  There will probably be a time when she has a major tantrum in aisle three and I want to crawl under the shelving in shame.  But for right now, this exact moment in time, I am doing a little happy dance.  It's nice to know that we can do these errands together when we must.  I'm calling it a small triumph and what is life if not a series of small triumphs and failures?