A Whole New World

This is what it is like to shop with twins.

For reasons I don’t understand I feel the need to shop like I am preparing for a nuclear holocaust. Why buy one can of beans when you can have 16? Why only 2 boxes of pasta when you can have 25? A gallon of ketchup. Six pounds of frozen vegetables. We frequently buy in bulk at the friendly not-in-our-neighborhood wholesale store. And today I went shopping with the girls in said bulk store as part of a Shopping Expedition. By myself, as in alone.

This, of course, requires detailed planning. Getting the girls ready to get out of the house to walk to the garage alone is an effort that is exhausting. Loading the girls into the car while there is another car behind you at the garage waiting for you to finish is nerve-wracking. Not five minutes in the car and I had to pull over, climb into the back, squeeze myself between the two car seats and feed the babies, who wouldn’t stop crying. Yes, I tried to feed them before we left but no, they weren’t interested. Mind you I feed them both at the same time while also talking on the phone. That’s talent.

These are the only babies in the History of Babies who don’t LOVE to ride in the car.

Once their six-ounce bellies were full, we continued our journey. We started at T*arget. So I unload the girls, bjorn one, stroll the other and run into a store that is the size of a city block to return some unneeded bottles and pick up some formula (story of my life). This goes better than planned. Avery was laughing at everything and Maddie slept like an angel. So naturally I get cocky. This isn’t so bad. In fact, this is easy.

I load the girls back in the car and drive to B*Js. This is when things start getting interesting. I bjorn Avery and carry Maddie in her car seat to a shopping cart. But once Maddie and her car seat are safely in the shopping cart, I realize there is no room for anything else. And since this is all bulk items (24 rolls of paper towels…124 rolls of toilet paper ….) I come to the horrifying realization that I will have to drag a second giant shopping cart, to fill with thousands of pounds of stuff, behind me. This makes getting through the aisles—even as large as they are—extremely difficult. I am a force to be reckoned with. A baby in a cart in front, me with a bjorned baby in the middle and a cart behind me, traveling at the speed of a snail to stock up on dishwashing liquid and chicken cutlets. Oh, and the wheels on both carts were not quite right.

Check out is laborious, but it’s the trek back to the car, with the loaded shopping cart and the Maddie cart, that is borderline dangerous. It’s hard to steer using only one hand! My wrist muscles are getting much stronger. I unloaded all of the bulk items and then the girls and I went to the regular grocery store to stock up on regular-sized items. The groceries are SO much cheaper than at our local store. Like 50 percent cheaper. My ice cream, which I eat every night, is two dollars cheaper. I walked out with three bags of groceries for $40.

So back to the car, load the groceries and girls back in and we head home. A half hour later I am in front of my apartment building wondering how I am going to do this. How am I going to get all the groceries and the bulk items and the babies home? Luckily the doorman and the porter ran out and helped. They unload all of my goods onto a cart and kept them in the lobby while the girls and I drove to the garage and walked home.

The girls will be four months on Friday. Four months they have been here in our home. Cliché as it is, time really is flying. Last year one this date was Day 9 of the IVF cycle that produced these babies. We are rapidly approaching Conception Day, which is two days after Nicole’s birthday.

Pictured above is Maddie looking at Avery…and Avery looking so weary. And below that are the girls in Halloween hats. Who can resist such cute hats? Only $1 at T*arget!