Shopping with Five Children

Perhaps if I were someone else, I'd entitle this post something like "Why I Love Living in Provo, Utah". But I'm not that zealous for or against the fact that I'm raising my family in Provo. This just happens to be where we are at this time in our lives raising our family. But I do have to confess that my experience grocery shopping yesterday could probably have never had happened anywhere else on the planet.

For starters, Macey's (the grocery store, not the department store) recently purchased these wonderful four-seater shopping carts. It's one of those shopping carts that's shaped like a car on the front end for two kids to ride in. Admittedly, Aaron is getting a little too big to ride in one of these, but he and Dallin faired pretty well on the front end. The back end was also a double seater allowing for the two smaller boys, Joseph and Jacob to comfortably sit on top. I think that Macey's must have purchased this shopping cart just for our family, but that leads to the second observation.

The reality is that we are not the only family around here that have enough small children to fully occupy a four-seater shopping cart. Myself feeling fairly well occupied with five children for the present, especially in a grocery store, by some accounts we're still not as big as other families in our neighborhood.

For example, as one of my children was throwing something of tantrum in the produce section of the grocery store, a sweet elderly lady comes up to me and says, "Are these all your children?" I acknowledged that they were, and mentioned how grateful I was for the four-seater shopping cart. She commented on how wonderful it was to have them as young as they were.

She then add that she was a mother of 12 children herself! Seeing me and my five children brought back fond memories for her, and her face was radiantly cheerful as she said so. That did something for me. I won't say that it made my shopping trip any less hectic or stressful. What I saw though was a woman who looked back fondly on those memories that I was now living for myself -- a bit of perspective.