Aldi Back
Taking care of young children is like sitting in a pot of water on the stove. The heat increases so slowly that you don’t notice things are too hot to tolerate until things boil over and the lid blows off because Tory is digging screwdrivers out of the junk drawer while Ian is playing in the fireplace and Abbie is dumping a formerly full box of cereal on the floor in search of the marshmallow pieces.
With Abbie’s preschool adventures, I suddenly have a giant hole in my morning schedule. Taking care of 33% fewer children for a few hours opens up a myriad of possibilities. I’m filling the schedule with new morning routines guaranteed to leave me overtaxed within a month as I add too many activities.
Our new Wednesday routine involves the library and groceries. Both of these activities are impossible with three young children, but are ideal with a child-to-hand ratio of one-to-one.
I only have an hour between library time and Abbie’s return from preschool, so I have to do a truncated grocery trip to ensure the front door is unlocked when she steps off the bus. I like to knock off my truncated grocery list at Aldi.
Aldi is a German grocery chain. Germans are known for many things. Efficiency. Disaffection. Disturbing music. A pleasing retail experience is not one of those things.
There is one reason to shop at Aldi, and that’s price. The milk is a good price, the cereal is cheap, and the produce is suspiciously inexpensive. Otherwise, the food is hit-or-miss quality, the selection usually involves their generic brand or nothing, and the stores are small and cramped. Oh, and they charge for grocery bags and require a deposit for a shopping cart.
This appeals to my cheapskate persona, and I know the store well enough to knock out my cereal/milk/scary produce grocery list in a few minutes. The cart gymnastics can be challenging, though. I usually have to leave the kids in the car while I take care of the cart deposit. They never leave my sight while I grab a cart, so they’re always safe, certainly safer than they’d be running around the parking lot until I finagle a free cart. I still feel like I’m abandoning them, though.
Sometimes I luck out and find someone close to “buy” a cart from when I arrive, or someone offers to “buy” ours as I load the kids in the car. The latter happened to us today. An older man with a thick Scandinavian accent* approached us as I threw cereal in the back of the car and said, “I’ll buy your wagon from you.” I smiled and was about to accept his offer when he added, “you can keep the kids.”
I laughed and quickly loaded everything and everyone into the car so he could “buy” my cart. After reducing my childcare load, taking care of just the two boys feels easy. I’m sure they’ll turn the heat up soon enough. They’ll literally turn the heat up because I can’t keep them away from the stove.
* I think it’s Scandinavian. I’m no expert on northern European dialects.
With Abbie’s preschool adventures, I suddenly have a giant hole in my morning schedule. Taking care of 33% fewer children for a few hours opens up a myriad of possibilities. I’m filling the schedule with new morning routines guaranteed to leave me overtaxed within a month as I add too many activities.
Our new Wednesday routine involves the library and groceries. Both of these activities are impossible with three young children, but are ideal with a child-to-hand ratio of one-to-one.
I only have an hour between library time and Abbie’s return from preschool, so I have to do a truncated grocery trip to ensure the front door is unlocked when she steps off the bus. I like to knock off my truncated grocery list at Aldi.
Aldi is a German grocery chain. Germans are known for many things. Efficiency. Disaffection. Disturbing music. A pleasing retail experience is not one of those things.
There is one reason to shop at Aldi, and that’s price. The milk is a good price, the cereal is cheap, and the produce is suspiciously inexpensive. Otherwise, the food is hit-or-miss quality, the selection usually involves their generic brand or nothing, and the stores are small and cramped. Oh, and they charge for grocery bags and require a deposit for a shopping cart.
This appeals to my cheapskate persona, and I know the store well enough to knock out my cereal/milk/scary produce grocery list in a few minutes. The cart gymnastics can be challenging, though. I usually have to leave the kids in the car while I take care of the cart deposit. They never leave my sight while I grab a cart, so they’re always safe, certainly safer than they’d be running around the parking lot until I finagle a free cart. I still feel like I’m abandoning them, though.
Sometimes I luck out and find someone close to “buy” a cart from when I arrive, or someone offers to “buy” ours as I load the kids in the car. The latter happened to us today. An older man with a thick Scandinavian accent* approached us as I threw cereal in the back of the car and said, “I’ll buy your wagon from you.” I smiled and was about to accept his offer when he added, “you can keep the kids.”
I laughed and quickly loaded everything and everyone into the car so he could “buy” my cart. After reducing my childcare load, taking care of just the two boys feels easy. I’m sure they’ll turn the heat up soon enough. They’ll literally turn the heat up because I can’t keep them away from the stove.
* I think it’s Scandinavian. I’m no expert on northern European dialects.
posted by Matt at
11:09 PM
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