It seems that every time that I come home from the grocery
store and face the task of bringing the umpteen bags and boxes of groceries
inside, I remember performing the same task in good old Ohio. We kids would
open up the back of the brown Astro van and proceed to string our arms with as
many bags as we could and waddle toward the door trying to not collapse. Mom
would call out, “Make more than one trip!” as she observed the bags getting
closer and closer to the ground as my muscles proved to not be that Olympic
strength (Sorry, my husband! Our babies will have to get their strength from
you…). The sequence of dropped bags leading to broken jars or crushed food
leading to wasted money did not register in my young head so I was often demoted
(or promoted?!) to holding the door open. Whoops.
Now when I open up the trunk of our car (we aren’t cool
enough to own a brown Astro van), it is normally with a sleeping baby strapped
to me. Ryan rarely fails to fall asleep on the way home from the grocery store
purely because I would prefer that he stay awake until I can put him in his bed
for a gloriously long nap. Or because straining his neck back to have the best
possible view of the numerous lights and fans in grocery stores is extremely exhausting. Either way, Baby Boy is fast asleep.
My view of the light and fan enthusiast. |
I should give some logistical info to give you the full
picture. We live in an apartment complex so in order to bring all the groceries
into our humble abode, I have to go up a few stairs, unlock and open the
building door, open another door and then finally unlock and open the apartment
door. Our apartment is also far enough from the car that I can’t just plop the
baby down in the kitchen with some pots and pans, run out and go back and forth
with nary a worry as if we lived in a house with an attached garage. I also don’t have the option of just leaving
the sweetly sleeping baby in the car because we don’t have said hypothetical
oh-so-luxurious garage. Since I treasure
both sleep and the meat, tons of cheese and eggs sitting in the trunk of the
car not becoming Petri dishes of E.coli, salmonella and every other bacteria
under the sun, I have to slowly lift Ryan out of the car seat and strap him
into the baby carrier and start the “mom bounce” to keep him asleep rather than
just have him finish his nap in the car. Plus, I'll be honest...naps are like gold both for the baby and the mama. Nap time spent in the car is like fool's gold to me; they just are not the real thing.
So I start to grab the bags out of the trunk with the
intention to make more than one trip, but the obnoxiously loud crinkle of
plastic alerts Ryan’s subconscious. Fun! Something I am not supposed to play
with! Must wake up! As he begins to stir, I silently berate myself for
forgetting the oh-so-quiet-and-handy-but-only-if-you-remember-them reusable
bags and my instinct to protect any possibility of continuing sleep kicks in. I
start mom bouncing at a faster pace like a massage chair in the mall set on
high as I frantically grab all the bags at once. “MUST GET BABY INSIDE ASAP,”
flashes in my head. Four bags on each arm plus a sack of potatoes in one hand
and toilet paper in the other, a purse on one shoulder and a baby on my chest,
I scurry up the stairs, only to be smacked with the realization that I am a
rookie mom; where are my keys?!
Experienced moms have their keys at the ready, unlike my
keys shoved into the abyss of my purse. So I wedge the potatoes between the
stair rail and my body to free one hand in order to fish for my keys. Ryan
flips his head with his eyes still closed as he hears that tempting crinkle
once again so the mom bounce intensifies. I look like I have an intense itch
that can only be remedied by dancing against a sack of potatoes. Finally, my
fingers touch my ND bottle opener and Ladurée macaron key chains, and I can
cease that amusing dance move.
All the excitement acts as a perfect way to forget my lack
of muscle strength, right? Yeah, for maybe five seconds. One door unlocked, opened and on to the next
one! I’m feeling the burn. The next
second passes, and I am so over the burn. Next one opened and I rush through
while most likely smashing some bread and cracking some eggs. We are in the
final stretch! Ninety-nine percent sure my arms are going to fall off. Only ten
more steps! I don’t even know how I manage to unlock the door. My arms give in
right after we cross the threshold, and the rustling bags hit the floor with an
impressive crescendo of crinkles.
Ryan’s eyes pop open. My body tenses.
Mom bounce! Mom bounce! Mom bounce!
His heavy eyes return, his breathing relaxes again and I
triumphantly survey my success as a pack mule with a motherly instinct. The
thought crosses my mind that maybe one day I will listen to my mom and make
more than one trip. Maybe…
But not until that luxurious garage. And definitely not
until I shake this all encompassing must-preserve-nap instinct.
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Please send in your advent wreaths! For Advent, I will be featuring Advent wreaths from my readers on the blog. If you would like to submit yours, please send a photo (or photos!) and a little bit about your family's Advent traditions to cedarsandtinyflowers {at} gmail.com. I hope to post one every day starting on December 2 (the first Sunday of Advent) in addition to my regular posts. Can't wait to read about your wreaths!
I just found your blog & I think it's lovely. Your little boy is darling.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jessica! That is so kind of you to say. I am excited to read more of your blog...your photos are amazing!
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