Please, Mom, can we PLEASE have broccoli??

As a mother of four, I have learned a lot over these eight years of motherhood. One of them is, in general, it is best to not run errands with all the children in tow if at all possible. Mind you my kids are fairly well behaved, but I'm a bit neurotic about having attention drawn to myself, and having a couple of, how shall we say, tactile children, there's always a risk of something huge happening that draws the attention of others, and not in a good way.

But every once in a while I get a wild hair and decide to bring my crew out with me to the grocery store. Now before we leave the van there is the usual, "OK, we're about to go into the grocery store. Let's review the protocol: no touching anything under any circumstances, one hand on the cart at all times, keep your hands off your siblings and out of your pants, and if you need something, use your church voice."

Here, I will digress. We have a good friend who is a priest. Once I told him how we run the children through a similar drill before Mass, asking them to rehearse how they will talk in church if they have to say anything (besides the prayers, of course). At the time I had been working on teaching Justin to whisper (which, for those who know Justin, is no small feat), and was wanting to show off this great accomplishment. So as we are standing by the priest, I say, "Justin, how do you speak when you are in church?", and waited for Justin to whisper, "Like this." Our priest friend says, before Justin can answer, "Justin, don't answer! It's a trick! You're not supposed to talk in church!" At this point, we all bust out laughing, completely ruining any hopes of reverence or silence as we are about to enter the sanctuary.

OK now back to the grocery. Once I have the boys repeat the grocery protocol back to me (because I have learned that just telling them doesn't mean they heard it, so repeating it back is a requirement), we're ready to enter. I only need a few things, so figure this is a low risk mission. We get inside, Veronica in the baby seat of the cart, Justin in the main basket, and Jacob and Luke flanking either side. We head to the produce aisle... and then it happens. Luke sees a display of broccoli, and immediately starts asking if we can have broccoli. Justin chimes in, and they are both hounding me excitedly for broccoli, as if we were in a candy store and they were asking for candy. "Mom, Mom, there's some broccoli! Can we get it? Please? We love broccoli! Can we Mom? Please? PLEASE?" I'm just in awe that my children are so excited over arguably one of the worst vegetables ever, in my humble opinion. And now I'm wondering what the people around me must think I feed my children that so much enthusiasm could be generated over broccoli. Then I realize the longer I stand there, the greater the potential for disaster, lest someone decide to touch something, so I quickly put a couple of bunches in a bag and put it in the basket. Then I promise them, if they are good for the rest of the shopping trip, then yes, they can have broccoli for dinner. I'm such a nice mom, aren't I?

Fortunately, the rest of the groceries were gathered and purchased without incident. I could exhale after we were all in the van, and the kids could have their broccoli for dinner.