Cheetos Are Bad For Me

When I had Ironflower, I planned to feed her a nutritious and organic diet as well as breastfeeding her for at least a year. The first crack showed up when she chose to wean herself at ten months. Then she swiped a french fry. And then she had chocolate cake at her first birthday. It was downhill from there. With Lovebug, I managed to at least breastfeed longer. He developed a penchant for his sister's Cheetos at a very young age.

And now I'm being punished for it. I made the mistake of buying Cheetos at the grocery store yesterday. And I let Lovebug hold them. I suppose my second mistake was bragging to everyone about how easy it is to get my shopping done when one kid or the other is in preschool. Anyway, between my bragging and allowing a small child to eat Cheetos, I guess I deserved what happened next.

As I was paying, Lovebug demanded to hold the Cheetos again. I had forgotten to separate them, so the bagger had put them somewhere. Somewhere I couldn't immediately locate. I explained he would have to wait until we got outside and out of the way. Lovebug's demands grew louder - the kind of louder that told me he was overtired and we were due for a meltdown. The tears flowed. The yells grew louder. I tried to calmly explain that we don't scream to get what we want as I pushed the full cart past all the people staring at me. I had barely taken two steps when I nearly collided with the person in front of me.

Lovebug and I were perhaps twenty feet from the door. I was sweating, since stress does that to me when I'm super pregnant. Lovebug was throwing a huge tantrum. We were quite a sight. And in front of us, in the too narrow for two carts to pass aisle, was an elderly couple. If they had been going any slower they would have been going backwards. Normally this would not have bothered me, but with sweat dripping down my face and a screaming two year old, I was in a bit of a hurry. Instead it took us five minutes to get to the door. I'm not exaggerating. I think the poor couple may have been deaf as well, since they never seemed to notice the huge tantrum going on behind them.

In our five minute trudge to the door, I tried not to have evil thoughts about them. I distracted myself by listing all the mistakes I had made that led to the tantrum - allowing Cheetos into my home, buying some that day, letting Lovebug hold them, not removing them from the bagger's clutches, getting behind this couple. This didn't really improve my mood.

Finally we made it to the car. Lovebug began to calm down. I wiped the sweat away. But then Lovebug decided he didn't want to climb into his car seat. I loaded the groceries in. Still no luck. I told him he needed to climb in or I would have to put him in, because we had to go. Still no luck. So I put him in his seat - and the tantrum began again. I was tempted to let him get down and do it himself, but then I thought I'd be rewarding the tantrum. And I'm pretty sure that's what got me into this tantrum mess in the first place. So I strapped his struggling body into the seat and got into the driver's seat.

I blotted the sweat. I took a few deep breaths. Lovebug screamed. The shopping cart guy glared at me. I had visions of other grocery store workers surrounding my car and I quickly drove away.

Moral of the story? Cheetos are bad. And life isn't necessarily easier when you only have one kid to deal with at the grocery story.