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People often say that little boys are more active than little girls are. Well, I kind of hate to say this about my most precious, most beautiful, daughter; but she was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to grocery shopping.

Before my sweetie-girl was born I felt like the picture of organization, efficiency, and energy as I took my well spaced sons to the grocery store. My oldest son was just five when his little brother was born. My helpful and perfectly well behaved older son would walk along beside me. My littlest guy would ride in the shopping cart. Grocery shopping was as effortless as it would have been had I been shopping alone. That was the easy life I had with my two little sons. My littlest guy was going on three when his little sister was on the way. The fact my unborn daughter, unlike her biological brother (one son was adopted), moved non-stop should have been a tip-off of things to come.

Actually, all remained effortless while she was too young to stand up; but even at five months old my wiry little sweetie found ways to get out of the car-seat straps that I had thought were so secure. Even the smallest of infants gains weight, though. Even the most self-sufficient of three-year-olds still needs watching and help. Also, even the most well behaved of eight-year-old boys get more energetic. Over the months between my daughter's birth and the time she began standing up I could feel my self-image of being the picture of composure and organization at the grocery store began to erode. The month my daughter turned nine months old marked the beginning of a two-year period when grocery shopping was nothing but a horror show. My head never really exploded, but it often felt as if it would.

My nine-month-old daughter decided that since she could stand up that meant she need never, ever, sit down again. Other than the fact that she was a wiry and active little lady, I have no explanation for the fact that, no matter how hard I tried to fasten her car seat correctly, she happily "Houdini'd" her way out of it on absolutely every car ride. This meant that every car ride (and I mean EVERY car ride) involved my almost constantly looking in the rear-view mirror, trying to figure where I could stop the car, and listening to my two caring, conscientious, little sons giving me an urgent, play-by-play account of what "she's doing now". The word, "Whoa" was frequently used by my sons. "Now she's" and "Mum" were coming at me from all directions

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