Trolley Dash

Hi there!

How are you today? It’s our last lazy day – half term is well and truly over. Although Bubs has been mourning the end of the holidays since Friday…

We haven’t done much this week. Older Miss (OM) had ‘compulsory revision’ at school for three out of the five days so it wouldn’t have been fair to go on fun days without her. Our highlight of the week was a trip to the supermarket, which I know sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.

On Sunday evening, I’d already told Team Ellis that we would be doing the food-shop in the morning. OM tried to get Mr E to go, insisting it would be a fun ‘date’ for us while she baby-sat her siblings (I give her 8/10 for effort). Mr E’s reply was a simple ‘No.’ He dislikes going to the supermarket and I dislike going with him as he tends to disappear. I’m then left standing in the middle of the shop waiting for him to reappear, which he eventually does but with ten things that weren’t on the list, one thing that was, insisting that the other five that were on the list weren’t in stock…

Anyway, I digress.

When it became clear that Mr E was not getting involved, OM tried to get Littler Miss (LM) to go with me and she tried to get OM to go (way to make me feel wanted, girls). I waited until I was saying goodnight to tell them we were all going and closed the door while they were protesting.

On Monday, OM must have gotten fed-up with the moaning from LM and Bubs as she had a suggestion:

‘Shall we have a race?’ She had a cheeky glint in her eyes. Bubs and LM with eyes wide instantly agreed.

‘I’m on OM’s team!’ Said LM, but OM had already agreed to be with Bubs.

‘But you get to be with Mummy,’ said OM to which LM offered a weak smile in reply (again, thanks…).

It was decided that the prize would be the winners wouldn’t have to do the dishwasher on their days and they also didn’t have to tidy their room – that was the losers job 😊

List divided up and several bags-for-life in hand we were off.

At the supermarket, we got two trolleys and they all practically ran through the doors with me calling after them in a shouty whisper to stop running.

The prospect of not doing the dishwasher was too much for LM who deliriously yelled at me:

‘Quick Mummy! Just throw them in!’ She ran off to get some apples while I ignored her haste and kept inspecting the bananas. Throw them in – as if.

She came running towards me as I made my way to her. ‘Err, LM? Did you look at these apples?’

She glanced at the huge wormhole I pointed at. ‘Oh. Sorry. Come on! What shall I get next?’

I was tempted to say ‘nothing’ after replacing the apples but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

‘You get the lemons and some tangerines. I’ll be over that side getting potatoes.’

‘Cool!’ She said and ran off.

I laughed as I did a speed-walk round the corner and grabbed the potatoes. LM dashed back to the trolley and off again, constantly on the lookout for her brother and sister. We saw them ahead of us at one point but ducked down a different aisle.

When a box of soap powder was placed in the trolley, we both looked at the list.

‘Are we done? Is that it?’ LM looked at me and back at the list. ‘We WON!’ She did a little jig in the aisle. Ha! And she didn’t even want to be on my team!

We found OM and Bubs and broke the news. They still had three items left on their half of the list so LM and I graciously helped them out – only for them to sneak to the checkout and try to claim victory! The cheek.

So the week started on a high and has generally been a good one. Even got LM to make dinner this week (pasta with sauce made from scratch – we all had seconds). We’ve stayed up late, watched movies and mostly, not got on each others nerves (well, petty squabbles always happen, but no so much this week).

I highly recommend a trolley dash – not only does it get your steps up for the day, but you get your shopping done and it’s fun. What’s not to like?

Let me know how you get on 😊

Speak soon x