the art of grocery shopping

i was pretty excited for this school year, because katelyn is in 1st grade and annie is in pre-k (which is 1/2 day, everyday, at the elementary which means i have 3 hours everyday with just samantha). i thought, "grocery shopping will be a piece of cake with just samantha." HA...guess again. since derek was out of town i hadn't been grocery shopping for about 2 weeks...so my list was huge. i had to get every thing from toothpaste to ketchup. so, i started out in the pharmacy part of the store...samantha's cutting teeth so i needed more tylenol...well, i let her hold the box, and that ended up being an awful idea, because she chewed/sucked it to shreds. i had to take it away from her and that started the tantrum from H-E-double hockey sticks. at first i was just dealing with her being loud. BUT about half way through the shopping trip she realized she could reach what was in the cart...and it was pretty fun to remove items from the cart and chuck them out. and i mean CHUCK. i would put in the box of cereal, and she would chuck it out. i would go pick it up and while my back was turned she would grab the bag of chips and smash them as hard as possible. i would get the chips from her and be trying to organize the cart so she couldn't reach them again and she would grab a yogurt and chuck it at a person walking by. i would apologize and she would grab a bag of marshmallows and try to rip into them with her teeth. (i came home with 2 bags of opened marshmallows.) i had to get ranch dressing packets and gravy packets...i don't know what i was thinking, but i put them where sam could get them and she started chucking them in all different directions. there were probably 10 packets in all and i was chasing them in 10 different directions. when i would pick up some and put them in the cart she would throw them out again while i was picking up other ones she had chucked out. aaaahhhhh!!!! i thought i was going to lose it! i thought, "maybe i should get her something to eat", so i found a box of the circus animal cookies...ya know that ones in a little red box with the string handle?? well, she ate a couple and i was relieved i found something to interest her...ya well, she ended up being more interested in shaking the box by the string...which ended up being upside down and cookies went flying everywhere. so, finally we get to the frozen foods section at the end of the fabulous shopping experience...with only produce left. i needed frozen corn and i put it on her lap thinking that maybe since it was cold it would entertain her for a bit....well, it did. she chewed on that darn bag of corn for the rest of the time. you should have seen the looks i was getting from people...one little old lady was sweet and said, "i think she's teething." YA THINK?! anyway, 2 hours later i finally left walmart...with samantha still chewing on the corn. what a little rat! ;)