Panic Attack ~ Shopping With Twins

Oh....the love of grocery shopping. Imagine: twin 2 year old's sitting side by side for over an hour as I bargain hunt. A bad situation in the making. When I wasn't looking Nicolas bit Christian for stealing his piece of ham. Aghhh, I had to take Christian out of the huge "buggy", push it with one hand, full of groceries (which is impossible to steer) and keep Nicolas from throwing food out of the cart. Speaking of which, someone needs to design a new cart that doesn't feel like it is continuously stuck in mud. So, as I am holding Christian who is crying hysterically,bumping into people with this huge cart and Nicolas ended up hitting a lady by mistake by throwing a box of Popsicles like a torpedo. Panic attack. I kept hearing the same words out of my mouth over and over : "Nicolas no" or "I 'm so sorry" or "Opps, sorry I didn't mean to bump into you".

My very wise sister said before I left for this week's journey to the store: "Try and enjoy all the little crazy things they do and just be thankful and in the moment because in the next year, they will care less about the big adventure of the grocery store". That put me in a confident mood as I headed to the store. We did great, boys didn't fight, Christian sang Happy Birthday song as loud as he could which brought him an audience and Nicolas swiped boxes off the shelves. A normal shop.

Then we got home. The really hard part of Grocery Shopping with two kids is unloading and putting the groceries away. As I walked into the house, my lovely dog Rocky ran to greet me at the door and oddly greeted me with projectile barf at my feet. Yep..lovely, thanks Rocky. Both kids are crying in the car for their sunglasses (of all things) and I realized I had to quickly come up with "unloading the car strategy". Panic is starting to set in and I am starting to loose perspective.

Once the groceries were in, the boys in and the dog out... the boys went wild and I mean WILD. They were pulling the bags off the counters, grabbing food, screeching at the top of their lungs with shear delight thinking it was a game - How fast can we run from mommy with food if we run in different directions and hide the food. I lost total control of the situation. Ken called in the middle of it and asked how is it was going? How was it going? ......He knew I was on the brink of losing my "positive perspective" and responded with "Oh boy, I better let you go".

At that point...yep I lost it. Panic attack. Darn it! Why did I have one...because I randomly get them over ridiculous stupid things. I fully understand them (I have a Master's Degree in Clinical Social Work and specialized in clinical psychotherapy - I say that only because I get the whole cause and effect thinking thing) but I still get them regardless. Meds or no meds. It's part of who I am that makes me., well me.. (let's just say it's a work in progress). For instance, I couldn't stop obsessing on all the meat and cheese that needed to be put away of all things as I was chasing the kids. I kept thinking, the meat has been out to long, it's going to get us all sick if I don't get it in the refrigerator soon..WHY CAN'T I FIND THE BAG WHERE THE MEAT WAS!!

Boys are finally up in bed, Rocky is fine...big sigh. Was that really another grocery store disaster? Was it really that bad? It took a lot of energy..but not a disaster. Yes, I lost focus for a minute but the more I thought about the chaos of this household, the more I started to laugh and see how much fun the boys have during it. The sound of their laughter as they ran from me in different directions is priceless. I mean, thankfully we didn't have any torpedos thrown at anyone this time at the store. Kids have such a sweet simple sense of humor and as I always say, it's a learning experience. At least I am confident that the next trip will be better and who knows....maybe no panic attack!