I think I have mentioned somewhere here that we live right next to the shops. As in, looking out the girls’ bedroom window, you can see into the carpark of the shopping centre. We live on the “wrong” side, though, as we are relegated to a single staircase for entry. No problem before we had kids. Very annoying problem when we used a pram, as we would either carry the pram and child and everything else up or down the stairs, or go the long way which is along the long bit of our street and down the busy road and crossing at the lights and past cafes and shops and around the corner and past all sorts of life and then into the shopping centre via the ramp. Then home again, which is then all uphill and sunny. Ugh. 

Now that we can do no pram and even sometimes no stroller, we can take the girls through the convenient staircase. This has been a wonderful development in our lives. The problem is coming home, though, when we are faced with a descent with minimal rails for holding. For smaller people, this is quite intimidating, and I am often suddenly dealing with a child frozen to a step, refusing to move anything for fear of tumbling down. The number of things I have carried down those steps! The number of kind people who have helped me carry things down those steps!

Then we are on a stretch of road with a wide footpath but girls tend to treat it as a place to fight. Which side of the stroller they are “meant” to be on. How fast they can race even though I’ve asked them not to. Who can scale the wall (the germs!!!) at all, or more than the others. Ugh. And there are just enough cracks and holes in the pavement for it to be necessary for younger ones to still hold onto my hand or a hand or the stroller because guaranteed there will be a trip from at least one child along there.

That’s, of course, after the actual shopping bit. The actual shopping bit has turned horrible lately. Maybe it always was but I could just bear it more easily. Maybe it is actually that girls’ behaviour is becoming more pronounced, more wilful, and more independent which is great, I know this, but I am also aware of other people and I am tired. I’m tired of asking kids to behave one way and being ignored. I’m tired of apologising to people because we are blocking the aisle or one kid is riding the basket and not looking where she’s going or pushing the basket along the floor at high speed. I’m tired of kids being insistent on what we buy and then wailing or screaming when we aren’t buying it. I’m tired of buying 10 yoghurt pouches even after the free fruit for kids because after the fruit girls then want yoghurt and then more yoghurt. I’m tired of being worried that the next person won’t be lovely, because they’re not always. 

A few weeks ago, when we had had an enforced shopping trip because we were out of milk – disaster – I had a think. C had definitely not wanted to go and I am determined to move away from “I’ll buy you x if you come”. S had been a bit on the snotty side so that’s another level of wariness when shopping. No girls had stopped when I asked them to stop. They had some sort of competition that I couldn’t work out but was getting them in the way of other shoppers and preventing them from listening to me at all. Nearly finished, and E was suddenly busting. Sigh. 

Once we were home and unpacked and girls were eating again, I had a think. Why is this so hard? I’m making them do something boring. Even with behaviour expectation reminders, that doesn’t make them suddenly want to do this. Their behaviour is telling me they don’t want to do this so they will do their best to make it fun in their own way which happens to be tricky for me to navigate around unknown entities. Right. How can we change this.

Home delivery. 

I used to think home delivery was for rich people, or rich sick people, or rich lazy people. So. Wrong. (I’m sorry! A thousand apologies!) Yes, it costs us a little bit more to shop this way. But no, not nearly as much as I feared it would be. And I am so willing to pay that small amount to be able to shop this way. From home. Without the dramas of children. 

Said children, by the way, love this. They love having deliveries. They love having a knock at the door. They love looking in a bag and finding something – anything – that I’ve ordered. Apples! Juice boxes! Tissues! CHEESE! And it is much easier to find a willing helper to put something – anything – away. In fact, I usually find myself with helpers before I have even asked. And if not, well, it’s really not hard to put it away myself. Our place is notatall big.

Shopping in an app also brings online only specials and app-only specials. I can see boosted items more easily without trying to work out if the extra points for buying that item instead of another that is cheaper per 100g is worth it while also trying to stop a 2yo from pulling out all the items with green labels or listening to the pleading for something from a 7yo that is being copied by a 4yo then finding the 2yo has dropped half her free banana on the floor and is picking up bits to put in her mouth before I notice. I can add items to the cart whenever. Sudden brain cell just before I go to sleep – ooh, add it to cart. Conversation with Glenn after E and S are asleep – I’ll just find that now and there they are, in the cart. Waiting for files to show up at work – get onto that shopping. 

Another bonus, which I was hoping for but, you know, “home delivery is for rich people” got in the way: limits and saving money. Having shops right next to us has meant convenient shopping. We’re out of milk? Okay, better get some more and also while we’re there… Or, today I feel like sausages for dinner – okay, get over there and buy what you need. When we are well stocked at home, though, this is a luxury in which we have indulged. Now we are getting much more into the zone of, we’re not getting a delivery until Friday and today is Wednesday so what are we going to feed children for dinner? We still have this and this so why don’t we make that into this? Perfect! No more of that popcorn that was only bought because it was a half price special? Oh well. We’ll see if it’s on special next week and then I might (or might not) buy some more. Have a piece of fruit instead if you’re hungry. 

And yes, this has reduced our grocery bill. I didn’t do any official calculations before we started home delivery, but it was around the $350 mark I think, sometimes considerably more if it was a week of buying laundry detergents and olive oil. Now it is hovering around $250-300, a number I like much, much more.

Now, I love a good list, as you may well know. Keeping one on the fridge is no longer an option – our girls are tall and artistic – but we have Apple. We’ve had a “children quotes” shared note for some time now, and I made a shared note for shopping. I call it our master shopping list. Everything we buy, vaguely sorted in sections, goes on the list. If we are running low on something, one of us puts an emoji next to it on the list and when I am doing a shopping order, I look for it. Some things can definitely wait until they are on special so have had an emoji for a couple of weeks now, but some other things make it onto the top-up shop that I order for Monday or Tuesday, depending on when Glenn is working. 

Now please excuse me. I have to finalise a delivery order.