When your baby throws up on you outside Trader Joe’s…

When your baby throws up on you outside Trader Joe’s, do not go inside.

Do not think for a minute, “Okay this is gross, but we are almost done with our errands and if we pick up these last few things I will feel so accomplished for the day. And my toddler loves pushing that little cart so much…”

Seriously. Banish all thoughts from your head. When you have a five week old and a 22 month old and you already did a monster shopping session at the big grocery store down the street and you are on the brink of lunch time and nap time and an infant meltdown and your baby pukes on you, do not go inside. Abort mission. Go home.

This is the lesson I learned today. And in case you were envious after my last post… thinking I’m handling my transition to two kids so well, I tell you this story today to clear up any such illusions.

My Monday started out great. I was actually able to get up a little before the kids to read my Bible and have some coffee. Micah and I are implementing some big changes in our diet and I was excited to tackle the grocery store with my heavily researched Paleo-esque shopping list in hand. Micah offered to do the shopping for me this week, but I turned him down. Never mind that I would have two kids with me for the first time at the grocery store. I had a baby wrap, a toddler that needed to get out of the house anyway, and a long, detailed list to help us overhaul our health around the Russum household. This trip would be a piece of sugar free, gluten free, dairy free cake.

The first few errands went fine. I picked up cash from the ATM, filled my gas tank, and we handled the big grocery store pretty well. I wore Talitha in the Solly Wrap and told Zianne she could ride a car-cart for the day {yes, that obnoxious contraption where there is a plastic car affixed to the front of your shopping cart and you run into things all over the store while your toddler hangs out the side of the vehicle dragging their hands on the ground}. Never mind that the first car she got into was missing its steering wheel. After we juggled carts three times, we finally got Zianne in the “green and yellow!” car and we were off through the store. Talitha slept the whole time and I only bought three processed foods. Win. For the first time ever, I accepted the offer of help out to my car, and a kind grocery store worker pushed my cart for me and loaded my trunk with groceries. Why have I never taken them up on that service before?

Things were going perfectly and we had just one more stop – Trader Joe’s, where we would round out our supply of Paleo-friendly food staples. Talitha was due to eat, so I kept the AC blowing while I nursed in the front seat. Z started to get crabby in the back, but I provided her with a perfectly timed “pouch” and preservative-free cereal bar and all was well. For the mom that usually forgets to pack snacks for crucial moments, I was pretty proud of myself. This grocery shopping with two kids thing was a breeze. I decided I would wear Talitha again and jumped out of the car to slip her into the wrap. As I was dancing around the car in 100 degrees, trying to juggle the toddler and grab my purse and remember the list, I suddenly felt a little lurch from my baby bundle and then the alarming feeling of warm liquid dripping down my chest all the way to my stomach. Baby vomit. The projectile-from-the-pit-of-that-tiny-infant-stomach kind where they puke out all the milk of their last three feedings. I cringed and pulled Talitha out of the wrap. This was a setback but it would not stop me. I would put T back in her car seat and finish buying the items on the healthiest shopping list known to man! Never mind that the entire front of my shirt was covered in regurgitated breast milk…

We made our way into the store where I dumped Talitha’s car seat into a “big” cart, while Z gleefully picked out a toddler-sized cart to push around the store. Please keep in mind that Trader Joe’s is a small store. If you’ve never been in one, they pretty much all look the same. Produce on one side, wine and beer on the other side, and about three aisles down the middle. To match their small square footage, they provide small-sized carts, because how much could you possibly buy at a store with three aisles? They also provide even smaller carts for kids to push around the store, because what could possibly be more convenient than erratic toddlers with tiny shopping carts underfoot in a small, yet always crowded, grocery store? Zianne has only had her own TJ’s cart once before and she did great! We were picking up a few items, I put them all in her cart, she pushed it calmly around the store and unloaded the whole cart by herself at the checkout counter. That was when life was easy and one of my kids was still in the womb…

Today, Zianne did the opposite of last time. She pushed the cart all around the store and half the time I had no idea where she was because my other daughter was so busy screaming her head off. Every time I bent over to frantically shove Talitha’s pacifier in her mouth, Z would turn a corner and disappear out of sight. At one point, I left Talitha crying in the dairy section and found Zianne two aisles over stuffing her cart full of all-natural health supplements such as milk thistle capsules. I kept trying to steer Zianne toward me but I physically couldn’t keep track of two carts. Since Zianne’s cart was so full of items we weren’t actually buying, I had to start piling food on top of Talitha’s car seat. Usually I wouldn’t set a package of ground turkey on the canopy of my child’s infant carrier but these were desperate times. I had to put the eggs underneath the cart on the little rack that is usually reserved for large items such as dog food and charcoal for the grill.

Eventually Zianne’s cart, which was filled with supplements and coconut oil and whatever else she could get her tiny hands on, got too heavy for her. At one point, she was trying to walk on her knees while pushing it through the produce section before she eventually abandoned the overflowing cart in the back of the store and walked around saying “I poopy. I poopy.” Turns out she was accurate. Sorry kid. 

Meanwhile, Talitha was still screaming as I crisscrossed back and forth across the world’s tiniest grocery store because I couldn’t keep track of my list and why the heck were we eating all this healthy food anyway? Half the customers were looking at me with sincere pity in their eyes, a few were surely disgusted with me, and a couple of kind older ladies tried to convince Zianne to push her cart to the front of the store {bless you!}.

We finally made it to the checkout where Zianne somehow found room to stuff a few more items into her cart. Who can say no to the candy bait while you wait in line? I monitored as each item came out of her cart and told the attendant which items we were not actually buying. We made our way out of the store and into the hot car where our other groceries had now been sitting in the 100 degree trunk for close to an hour. 

I made it home with both girls and put Zianne down for a nap almost instantly. It was time for T to nurse again, so I let the world’s healthiest grocery items sit out on the counter for almost another hour before I got them put away. They say fermented foods are healthy for you, right? As I emptied the final bag of Trader Joe’s items, I pulled out an unexpected package. Plantain chips? They were not on my list but somehow made their way home from Zianne’s cart. I served them for Zianne’s snack later that day and she gobbled them all up. I think her antics were just a ploy to sneak home a Paleo snack of her own.

So in case anyone thought I was transitioning to this mom-of-two thing gracefully, I hope this clears things up for you. Next time Micah offers to grocery shop for me, I’m taking him up on it.