The Mini-Shop

It used to be all so simple. Me and Mrs Koinuchan would realise that we were out of Columbian Blacktail Free Range Eggs or some such and I would pop down to the local supermarket and get them. The whole situation would be resolved within ten minutes and we could get back to doing whatever we were doing before we discovered our egg deficit. With the advent of Little Miss K any visit to any shop is a major undertaking - to the point where we avoid supermarket-based shopping whenever possible. If it wasn't for the miracle of Internet Supermarket Shopping we'd probably starve.

Eventually a visit to the local supermarket cannot be avoided. This usually coincides with Little Miss running out of her Fresh Organic Whole Milk Lovingly Procured From Ecstatically Happy Cows for her bedtime bottle. Miserable Cow milk doesn't cut it with her. She'll drink half and then wake up hungry at 2am yelling at us for Being Naughty. Happy Cow milk it is then.

We are already feeling flustered after wrenching a trolley from the mangled pile of twisted metal in the car park. Unfortunately our local large supermarket has a Tweenies Rocket Ride in the foyer. 'TWEEEEENIES!' screams Little Miss and she makes a bee line for the ride. 'Want Tweenies now!'. I scoop her up and calmly say 'Not now, later'. 'But.... TWEEEEENIES!' she pleads, going bright red. I point out the apples in the nearby fruit and veg counter. 'Oooohhhhh! Apple! Mela! Apple!' she giggles and toddles off in that direction. Nicely distracted, I put her in the trolley's toddler seat and we spend a stimulating five minutes identifying all the fruit and vegetables. Mrs Koinuchan, grateful for the relative calm, gets some apples.

Our shopping list was very short - spaghetti, bread sticks, Happy Cow milk and apples. It took us over half an hour to track everything down. Little Miss is easily distracted and this was a shop full of distractions. Unfortunately she also hates being in this seat. Much too soon we always hear the Dreaded Almighty 'OUT!' as she tries to get break free. Sometimes, especially if both of us are with Little Miss, it is just easier just to let her loose with one parent on rampage mitigation duties and the other actually shopping. This was one of those times.

Eventually we turned into the magazine aisle. Big mistake. We walk past the childrens' magazines. Even bigger mistake. Mrs Koinuchan picks up CBeebies Magazine. Abort! Abort! Little Miss' face lights up. 'Beebies! Stickers! Beebies!' she shouts excitedly. 'Want stickers!'

Well, anything for a quiet life. Little Miss gets her magazine and she holds it with a reverence previously reserved for likes of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Rosetta Stone. 'Beebies,' she states calmly and starts to look for the sticker sheet. We approach the checkout counter and then the unmitigated horror of the ensuing situation hits us. We will have to give the magazine to the woman on the checkout to pay for it.

We hear a ripping noise. Little Miss tends to get so excited by her stickers that sometimes the magazine is in a less than pristine condition even before we get it home. Mrs Koinuchan takes it and puts it on the conveyor belt before it gets completely ruined. Little Miss believes the world is ending and half the shop watch her working herself into a tantrum. So I take the nuclear option. 'Scan this,' I tell the checkout, passing her the box of bread sticks. I take the box, rip it open and give Little Miss one. 'Wed Tick!' she exclaims and starts to munch away merrily, CBeebies magazine long forgotten.

Behind us in the queue was a mother with a slightly older child in a pushchair. The child is slowly working his way through a packet of Hula Hoops. The mother looks at me and gives a wry smile. I know exactly what she is thinking.

One. Of. Us.