Another check-out line story

Friday we decided to actually get our poor children out of the house and visit civilization and the swimming pool. Its about an hour drive away which takes a bit of steam out of the kids to begin with, and while my brave husband took the three toddles swimming (he's a pro daddy) I hit wal-mart with the baby.

I think its been over a year since I've shopped at wal-mart. Just for some full disclosure. And to show that I'm not a horrible person. But sometimes when you're hauling around a baby less shopping stops is a necessity!

I did fairly well shopping, I did the groceries, various household necessities, and diapers within half an hourish. But I ended up with nearly a full cart and tried to find the shortest/fastest checkout line.

Of course as soon as we stop at the check-out Max wakes up and realizes he's starving to death. Cue old grumpy lady pulling up behind me. Its another 5 minutes until I can actually start putting my groceries on the little conveyor thingy and I've been trying to bounce, roll, rock, and get Max to take a soother the whole time. I'm now loading groceries and bouncing, rolling and rocking at the same time. Here's when the old lady chimes in "I think he's hungry." Gee, ya think?!

At this point I want to be really sassy and say something like "Wow, thanks for that motherly wisdom, I never would have figured out that continuous crying meant he was hungry" or "Here let me just whip out a boob and load these groceries at the same time!" But I didn't. I pushed out a slight smile and agreed.

This is an uncommon experience since I've had a tiny bitsy baby for most of the past 4 years. I'm used to kids behaving pretty crumby while grocery shopping, and sometimes babies just are going to cry but you've gotta live life. I have also decided to not feel bad if my baby is crying in situations like this. Its what babies do, and I'm not apologizing. He's going to be tended to as soon as possible, but I also need to get these groceries, and trust me I've tried to do this in the fastest, best possible way according to this kids feeding schedule! So would it be too much to ask for a little help from the old lady behind me? Maybe a helpful word of encouragement? Man, I'd just take a sympathetic/pitiful smile!

Sometimes I just don't understand why people have to be so mean/discouraging. It must be tiring.

I left the awful wal-mart praying that if and when I ever don't have babies of my own that God will never let me forget what having little babies is like and to give me the grace to actually help that poor mom ahead of me, to say something encouraging, and maybe throw in a smile!