Our Favorite Outing

Dear Laney,

You and I have a new favorite outing, and I am not making this up:  We love, love, love to go to the neighborhood food co-op (aka grocery store).

We live just five blocks away from the store, so you're able to make the whole journey on your Dora bike. I follow behind you, dragging the red wagon that will carry our groceries. When we get there, you demand your own parking space for your bike, and you hang your flower helmet on your handlebars, just like you've seen Dad do.*

The store has normal-sized buggies, but they also have these awesome little push baskets just the right size for your average three year-old. You love pushing the basket so much that I never get a buggy, and thus have to limit myself to buying what will fit in the small basket. This goes well with the lecture your dad keeps giving me about how - now that we live in town - my style of food shopping can be "more European, less Doomsday Prepper."

It's also your rule that you're the only one who can touch the groceries, so you pick everything off the shelf and put it in the basket (I move the bread out from under the gallon of milk when you're not looking). If we need something out of the bulk section, you're the one to use the scoop and put it in the bag and even write the item number on the bag.

See that blue stool? You dragged that out from the stockroom and put it under the produce table so you could pick your own apples. 

On each trip, you're allowed to pick one new thing to try, which has been hit and miss. You picked goat cheese once, which you decided you didn't like. Apricots were a winner, as were the giant rigatoni noodles. On average, having you as a shopping companion adds an extra 30 minutes and an extra 30 dollars to each trip. Totally worth it.

When it's time to check out, you put the groceries on the counter and then climb up on the bag stand so you can be tall enough to put your purchases in the bag. The only purposes I serve are to hand you things from the top shelves and fork over a debit card at the end. We probably couldn't do this anywhere else - our co-op is about the size of a 7-11, and we're typically the only people in there. 

A few days ago, as we returned from the store, you looked at me and said, "You know, I think I could go to the store all by myself and buy groceries without any help."

I don't doubt it for a minute.

Love,

Mom

* Last night, Dad let you come along on your bike when he walked to the brewery. When you guys got there, he reports that you parked your 2 ft tall Dora bike in between two huge, serious-looking mountain bikes, then took off your flower helmet and hung it on the handlebars before going in to buy your pale ale. Two women were leaving the brewery, and one whispered to the other, "Oh my God - that's the cutest thing I have ever seen."