My son hates going to the grocery store with me. Despises it. He will think up every possible scenario to avoid it, but most weekends I don’t have the luxury of going alone. In order to make it bearable for both of us, (Really, who wants to spend and hour or two with a whiny seven-year-old plodding through the store like he’s a man lost in the desert dying of thirst?), I try to make it fun. Today we timed how long it would take from leaving the car to getting the groceries packed into the car. Not only did it keep P and I focused on our list, but we did it in 20 minutes. 20 minutes. I didn’t even know that was possible.
While we’re inside the store, sometimes he’s in charge of the list, telling me what’s next, how many apples we need, and where we’re headed next. Other times he’s in charge of the cart, but every time he’s in charge of picking out what fruits and veggies he’ll eat for the week. These tasks usually keep him distracted for most of the trip.
Sometimes after checking out, I give him our receipt for the car ride home. I give him challenges, like finding the most expensive and least expensive items we bought that day or counting how many items were under $2.00. Most of the time he just prefers to tell me about all the money I could save if I used the coupons printed on the back of the receipt.
But what makes every trip to the grocery store fun is road construction. Yes, you read that right. We love checking what progress has been made on the several new overpasses under construction near our grocery store. It’s something I learned from my mother. One summer she frequently took me and my brother to watch a bridge being built. The city was replacing a small bridge on Baird Street that went over the river. I’m sure most people grumbled about what an inconvenience it was, but not my mom. She walked us over there and right up to barrier to point out all the different types of materials they were using, the work they were doing and how things changed since the last time we checked on it. Luckily for us, my mom’s dad was an iron worker. She knew the lingo for what we were watching. Listening to the grumbling of the vehicles, we watched those construction workers with wide eyes. To me, they were as interesting as tightrope walkers in the circus. It was like a Richard Scarry story come to life.
Thanks to my mom and Richard Scarry, as an adult I still see construction sites through those eyes. P and I marvel at the “tightrope walkers” high above street level working on top of the posts that will support the ramps. There are new cranes, trucks and construction vehicles there every week. We wonder out loud how much cement it takes to build just one support post, or if the guys have to wear harnesses while they work so high. As work progresses, our route changes every couple of months. The ramps are starting to emerge. And we are a part of it. For the rest of our lives we’ll remember the conversations we had about how that stretch of highway was built and maybe, just maybe, P will remember our trips to the grocery store and smile. I know I will.
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