Foraging

Despite the extra pain of inconvenience, expense and time, I am considering grocery shopping for my family for each day on the day.

Sunday, I went shopping. I bought what we needed for the week.  This morning, looking at my refrigerator, it seemed closer to empty than full.  I'd fixed them dinner last night and breakfast this morning so I was looking for items that I knew I'd purchased so I could make their dad his lunch for work.

The cheese sticks I got yesterday? Gone.  Ten of the twenty yogurts? Gone.  A gallon of milk? Emptied and dutifully returned to the fridge with the cap on.

Then I spied three of my children walking by, one was holding a clutch of freshly washed grapes, the other two, buttered toast on paper plates.  "Didn't I feed you breakfast?  Yes.  Yes I did.  You had Cinnamon Toast Crunch...I haven't even done the dishes yet..."

"But Mom..." my five year old daughter explained. "Breakfast was a long long minute ago."
I decided I'd let the kindergarten teacher tackle the concept of time and turned on the other two culprits who should know better.

"And we used paper plates." my seven year old son reasoned.
"I even washed the grapes." my nine year old volunteered.

Recognizing a lost battle, I told them, "Fine, but sit at the table." and the food thieves trooped happily over to the kitchen.  I opened the freezer to get out tonight's dinner and let it defrost.

The ice cream had been heavily raided.  The popsicles and Klondike bars were half gone.  Knowing I hadn't seen wrappers in the trash when I bagged it up this morning, I issued a general alert. "Who had ice cream?"

"Last night while we were playing magic." my 18 year old answered.
"Dad let us." the 12 year old added.

I went to get my breakfast.  Meanwhile, my infant daughter woke up hungry.  I started fixing a bottle for her while my ever helpful nine year old held her nearby to show her that food was coming.  My 8 month old was excited about eating and flapping her arms and legs in excitement. 

My nine year old was enjoying the show and not seeing what felt like it was happening in slow motion.  The baby slapped the cantelope on the counter which began to roll towards the edge of the island.  I tried to catch it but I was in mid fixing bottle so I sloshed mixed formula into the can of powdered formula, ruining the can and my outfit and the bottle while still failing to catch said melon.

My fifteen year old entered the kitchen to make herself some food.  "Is this all the milk there is?" she started to ask but I already had my keys and purse in hand.  "Mind the house, don't feed any of them and I'll be back with more...and a padlock and alarms so maybe we can get through lunch and still have something left for dinner."