Shop til you drop...

Whoever came up with the expression "as easy as taking candy from a baby" was clearly misguided, delusional or possibly both.  It is never easy to take candy from a baby.  Or any kind of sweet treat from a pair of twins either, once their minds are set on it.

This season of goodwill is a minefield of terror for any parent.  Everywhere you go in the supermarket are tempting goodies piled high, teetering on minuscule platforms made of matchsticks.  Every aisle has a display of some kind of sweet, biscuit, chocolate or lolly prominently displayed at the end, where an unwary mother, rounding the corner too fast with twins and a toddler, could conceivably bring the whole lot crashing to the ground.  Not only that, little hands are lightning-fast when it comes to snatching the very treat on which the rest of the treat pyramid is precariously balanced. 

I have mine well-trained.  They know better than to snatch at things as we round corners (I fervently hope).  However, that does not stop them asking, each and every time we pass such a display: "Mama, don't we need some chocolate/sweeties/cookies, etc.?"  And every time the answer is the same - "No, we don't".  The answer doesn't stop them asking though. A lady who had obviously been following the same path as us through the supermarket started laughing out loud to herself today as the question was asked for about the fortieth time. 

I think it is probably the first sign of madness - I have become immune to the constant nagging.

Not only that, but the queues at the tills seem to go on forever, and the wait is about forty minutes long.  Try to keep twins and a toddler away from the endless display of goodies stretched out for about ten meters in front of the till, on both sides of you, for forty minutes.  It is like trying to persuade Moses not to enter the Promised Land.  And once they have an item in their hand (or teeth as the case may be), you haven't a hope in hell of being able to pull it away from them.  To say nothing of being unable to put it back on the shelf due to the teeth marks in the wrapper from where they have tried to gnaw their way through the plastic like starving rats.  After all, one chocolate in the mouth is worth two on the shelf, right?

And as we sit in the car on the way home, accompanied by bags of various wet and soggy bars of chocolate that I did not intend to buy, I unwrap one and eat it.  And I find myself starting to smile again.  Because everyone has their price, and mine just happens to be chocolate!