The Supermarket
Daddy, when will I be a grownup?
When you go to the supermarket 14 times a week
We technically have a food shopping day. Often that day, Sunday, turns into Monday or Tuesday. Regardless of the day we go, we always wind up going back for something just about every day.1<———- CLICK ON RED BOXES
Today, I have taken my nine-year-old daughter, Liv, with me for the big weekly shopping. I enjoy Daddy/Daughter time, and she even behaves sometimes.
Plus, there’s another reason I’m taking her:
Since the day we struggled to get her to drink two ounces of milk, it has been a fight to get Liv to eat. Now this would be fine if she was gaining weight. But apparently eating food is actually required to gain weight and grow.
My new strategy is to take Liv food shopping so she can pick things and be forced to take ownership for her choices. While I’m not optimistic about this strategy—accountability and children aren’t always a match—it’s worth a shot.
We park.
“Mask on.”2
I grab a cart which has been abandoned in the parking lot.3
Liv is too big to sit in the cart. I’d make her walk, but she’ll be dragging by Aisle 5, complaining she wants to go home. So I let her stand with her feet on the bottom part of cart, holding onto the side. If she stands straight up, it’s fine.
She doesn’t. “Liv, stop leaning back.” She almost knocks over a display case.
We skip fruits and vegetables. I save those for last so they won’t go bad, as if the extra thirty minutes in my cart is going to make a difference. But it’s my OCD and I can’t change.
Aisle 2 – Cookies
Liv jumps off the cart.
“Daddy, can I get this?”
“Are you going to eat it?”
“Yes.”4
Aisle 3 – Cereal
Liv is surprisingly eating from a large box of cereal that she opened. Crumbs are getting everywhere and people are looking at me with disdain. Sure, I get embarrassed, but I’m also equally offended by anyone judging one of my own.
“You like that cereal?” I ask.
“No, but I’m allowed to take my mask off when I’m eating.”
I look around and fortunately no one is too close to us. Hey, I’m just happy she’s eating. Maybe she should have all her meals in the supermarket.
Aisle 4 – Condiments
Liv’s hands are full.
“Three soy sauces?” I ask.
“I love soy sauce.”
“One.”
“One says ‘diet’, for your big belly,” Liv offers.
“Thank you, honey. My belly is fine. Pick one.”
“No.” She storms off.
“Where are you going? Come back or it’s zero soy sauces.” A sentence I never expected to utter before I had kids.
I begin to look at the other adults in the store with envy. Are they here hiding from their kids?
“Do you have children?” I ask the woman next to me.
“Yes. Why?”
“Just admiring you reading the pickle labels. Must be nice.”
We move quickly through the next aisles. Liv doesn’t have interest in canned food or pastas.
Because why would she like pasta? It’s not like it tastes good or anything.
Dairy Section
My envy of Pickle Lady has boiled over. I begin reading yogurt labels, letting Liv wander off. I’m trying to find both extremes: the least calories—coconut milk yogurt—for me; the most calories—cookies and cream with a separate section with cookie pieces—for Liv. I get both yogurts, lamenting my reality in eight hours when everyone is sleeping and I open the fridge and see these two yogurts next to each other.
Where is she? “Liv!” I yell with increasing alarm each time. Finally, she appears holding three giant bags of potato chips. She quickly puts them in the cart as if I’m invisible.
Frozen Section
“Pistachio? You liked that at the restaurant,” I suggest.
“No.”
“Strawberry?”
“I don’t want ice cream.” Her disregard for ice cream should be considered a superpower.
I look for ice cream for me. I’m always convinced there will be an ice cream I’ve missed before that will taste good and also be healthy. No luck. It’s like searching for Big Foot.
Produce Section
First, a lesson:
“Daddy, why do they have fruit by itself?”
She’s referring to the fruit they display separately.
“That’s not really fair to the other fruit, to be singled out. Right?” I say. Always teaching.
Then it’s time to put her to work. She gets in less trouble when I keep her busy.
“Pick out some apples, honey.” When she is done, I will pick my own apples. I love my kids more than life itself, and I would die for them. When it comes to giving them the one apple left without the brown spots, though, that’s where I draw the line.
“Liv, can you get strawberries?” I don’t know why I bother, as they will surely grow mold before we even get home. My wife will then insist on taking them back and leave them in her car for three days before returning them.
“And carrots, please.” She sprints to the carrots, grabs two bags and throws them up in the air. This would be fine if she could catch. The carrots crash down to the floor right in front of a boy. I make eye contact with his mother and we smile. No need to apologize. She understands.
“Okay, great job. We’re done.” When she’s not looking, I put the carrots that crashed to the floor back and grab new ones that someone else likely dropped on the floor 20 minutes ago.
Checkout
This should be the finish line, but they manage to further torture parents by putting a whole candy bar display across from the conveyor belt. Liv grabs a Snickers.
“Last thing,” she says.
I nod my head, already defeated.
There’s a wait to pay. Why am I always in the line with the old woman writing a check? Liv finally starts putting our food on the conveyor belt. Every once in a while, an activity my kids like intersects with being useful.
I notice things she must have snuck in the cart.
“Liv, lima beans?”
“I love it.”
“You’ve never had lima beans in your life.”
“Yes, I have.”
Was this the magic ingredient we’ve been waiting on? Lima beans? No way. She’s bluffing.
I reach for my wallet and realize I don’t have it.
“Liv, come on. I don’t have any money on me.”
“We don’t have any money?” Liv screams to everyone in the county. My children think if you don’t have money on you, it means you have no money to your name.5
Fortunately, no accidents occur today and we retrieve the wallet. We go back in and pay.
“She’s so cute,” the cashier says.
“Thank you.”
“Daddy, what are we having for dinner tonight?”
“Lima beans.”
“Stop Daddy, for real?”
After going to the supermarket for the 18th time this week and spending hundreds of dollars, dinner for tonight is clear:
“The usual. We’ll order Chinese food.”
