Grocery shopping with Abby

Now I generally prefer not to take Abby grocery shopping with me, but Jason offered to keep the two boys so we set off for a trip to Cub Foods. I decided that since Abby was sitting up so well it was time to try her sitting in the cart. As we already know she doesn't care for riding in her car seat while grocery shopping, I generally 1) go grocery shopping when she's in bed and Jason is home or 2) put her in the sling for our shopping outing. She really seems to like the sling and it gets a lot of use these days, but it's a little difficult shopping with Abby in the sling, so I'd prefer she sit in the cart. So we gave it a try. We got to the store and I surveyed the carts for one with an operational buckle. I then put her in the seat and buckled her in. Here's the short ending: it didn't work.

Here's the long ending. When I placed Abby in the seat and buckled her in, she became completely stiff as if to say, "What the heck is my bottom and legs touching?" She then looked at me, shocked and incredulous, and started shrieking. Those who've been around Abby when she's not in a good mood know what noise I'm talking about. I had brought the sling with me and had thrown it in the cart so I decided to end the bout of shrieking and quickly put the sling over my shoulder. I retrieved her from the cart and she quickly quieted down, then I got her into the sling and as I was going to tighten it up I realized, in my panic, I had put the sling on backwards. I had no option other than to put Abby back into the cart seat, have her resume her shrieking even louder, adjust the sling and pick her back up and get her in the sling and tighten it up. So much for my idea of having her ride in the cart. She happily rested her head on my shoulder and sucked her thumb after the incident and I quickly amended my grocery list to items that could be collected with 1.5 arms. Although slings give you both hands free, it's really impossible to pick up a watermelon or bend down to grab and 12 pack of soda with a little one strapped to your hip. So I ended up getting mostly what I needed and also someone offered to bag my groceries. I don't know if they witnessed her outbursts or just realized the difficulty I would have with bagging with a baby in a sling, but I was certainly grateful. I guess we'll have to try the cart some other time. Abby certainly has her preferences and isn't shy about making them known.