3/6/25
So much of parenthood is hiding in plain sight to those who are not parents. Before having Reese, the thought of grocery shopping with a child conjured nightmare images mid-aisle meltdowns and endless negotiations. It turns out, when the kid can’t walk or talk, it’s the opposite.
Reese is objectively the cutest baby to bless this planet and I know this because she makes grocery shopping into an endless victory lap. Grocery shopping used to be an activity in which I would wall off the world with a podcast and efficiently cruise a counter-clockwise lap of the store. Now it’s a place for endless compliments from strangers and sporadic squeals of delight from Reese when she encounters…really anything.
After Reese was born we got praise, presents, handshakes, back pats – you name it – and we deserved it for enduring pregnancy and childbirth. External motivation and congratulation are nice, but it wasn’t why we did it (I use “we” here, Lauren carried the team quite literally). After a few months I figured that would be it, people would just see us, or ignore us, as the parents we became while we trudged up the Sisyphean hill of parenthood. No more marathon crowd cheers from the onlookers.
I love being wrong. Grocery shopping with Reese is like going to the SNL wrap party with that week’s host in your cart. Everybody – I mean everybody – at least smiles at you. Then there’s the in-passing interactions between just Reese and the stranger. You can tell the residual joy from the interaction just raised the overall happiness in the store.
By far my favorite is someone who’s in for a stop’n’gush. Demographics tend to be the older population out for a shop and skew female 90% of the time but hearing that you have “just the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen” never loses its charm. I thought I’d get tired of it, but it still hits.
When the public gush over Reese, I drink it in, accept the random praise and try to compliment back or deflect to Lauren as the originator of Reese’s genetic lottery.
One caveat is when they decide they’re armchair geneticists. The question “who gave her the red hair?” is fundamentally wrong, did these people not pay attention during the Punnett square section in Biology? We both had the recessive gene, Reese got it, her hair will stay red.
After the charm tour of the store we end up at the checkout which I always opt for in person because the checkout clerk is always charmed by Reese. Even the most business-like of the bunch end up vying for her affection with smiles, waves, and baby-talk. Reese loves it, they love it, the shopper behind us loves it.
If there’s a purpose in life, one could argue it’s to spread joy and connect with others. As we stroll to the car Reese and I know that despite any sleep regression, we’ve just spread a little joy for a few people at the store. Another victory lap for my daughter and me.
