A toddler’s shopping list

My husband and I are prolific list-makers. Take our to-do lists, for example. His is a 200-line Excel spreadsheet color-coded by “type” of to-do and ordered by priority and updated daily, meaning some items stay on there for a year or longer (case in point: “sell jet ski’s” has been on his list for over 4 years and 3 houses). I actually have 2 to-do’s lists: a 4×6 note card (remnants of a bad Moms Out Loud print job, actually) which has “big” items for a week, and a single post it note that I create the morning of and don’t go to sleep until I get done that day and throw it – happily – away.

In the area of grocery and shopping lists, we follow similar patterns. His is an Excel workbook, with a spreadsheet for the different stores we visit (Target, Costco, “other”). Mine is a magnetic notepad stuck on a board in our kitchen, which I update any time we get low or are running out of something. (I keep asking everyone else in the house to do this – my husband, my mom who is here every day watching the boys, but no one’s caught onto my method yet. Life would be so much easier if people just did what you wanted, huh?)

Every weekend before we go shopping (which is part of every weekend’s routine), we “merge” our lists into one list per store.

Well, we’ve recently had to add a third list to our merge task. From Jack, our almost-three-year-old.

The first Saturday morning he did this, Jim and I were at the kitchen table, verbally comparing lists and compiling one master list before we headed out to the store. My son saw this activity, and immediately asked for a paper and pen to make his list. Always eager to get my son to sit still for a second (instead of literally running laps around our first floor), I jumped up and supplied him with what he requested – after reminding him to use “please”, of course.

Here is what he came up with:

Trying so hard not to laugh when he very seriously announced he was done and proudly showed me his list, I asked him to please read it. Here is what he he said:

• “Grover bars” (a soft fruit & grain bar sold in the baby food aisle that’s a morning favorite for on the way to school)

• “Crackers” (of course – or is mine the only toddler who can eat an entire box of crackers in one week?)

• “Goldfish” (again, of course – and I KNOW mine is not the only toddler who can eat a pack -or two – of these in a week)

• “Dog treats” (Jack’s one chore is feeding the dogs their treats in the morning; I guess he wanted to make sure we didn’t run out)

• “Smoke” — What??

So, of course, we have to understand this. Why would “smoke” be on a shopping list?

Me: “Jack, why do you want smoke?”

Jack: “For the chimney.”

Me: “Why do you think the chimney needs smoke?”

Jack: “Because chimneys have smoke.”

Me: (I started racking my brain to think of where he would have come up with this, but gave up and went the explanation route.) “Honey, chimneys don’t have smoke in them all the time. (Jack’s eyes did the toddler-glaze-over-thing after my first sentence, meaning I should have just stopped there. But I just had to keep going.) Only during the winter-time when it’s cold and people light fires in them to keep warm. But it’s the middle of summer now, so we don’t need a fire.”

Jack: (Very matter-of-factly again) “I want smoke.”

Me: (I learned my lesson the first time, so explanation is out of the question.) “Honey, if you can tell me where to find it in the store, I will buy you smoke.”

We only had to check out three different places in the store to look for smoke before Jack, thankfully, gave up. The next week when “smoke” was on his list again, I didn’t say a word. He forgot to make me look for it in the store, as well. Guess whatever he really wanted was as elusive as, well, smoke.