What’s so difficult about going to the store to replenish supplies--even with two tots in tow? If you have to ask, you’ve obviously never tried it. : Milk Run

We were out of milk.

There are certain items I need to have in my home that help me feel like I am being a good mother. When I’m out of milk, I envision the pediatrician plotting the growth charts of my children and pointing to a dip in the curve.

“Are they drinking milk?” she asks.

And I have to confess that it was not possible for them to drink milk because I didn’t have any.

So we went to the grocery store.

Going to the grocery store with two children was still a new and brave experience for me. Mark was only 4 weeks old and Kate was 2. To help ensure a successful outing, I packed a bag of pretzels to occupy Kate while I shopped and I nursed Mark immediately before we left.

Whoever invented the notion that new babies could and should eat only every four hours never met either of my children.

Kate ate all her pretzels in the car on the way to the store.

When we pulled into the parking lot, she was thirsty.

I kept Mark in his car seat and attached his seat to the top of the grocery cart. Kate sat in the flip-down seat.

I wheeled them to the drinking fountain.

A mother pushing a cart walked by us followed by a child pushing a child-sized grocery cart. I stood between Kate’s line of sight and the child pushing the miniature cart until they passed. Mutiny was not on my grocery list.

Those mini-carts were designed to keep mothers in the grocery store for an interminable amount of time and Mark was just beginning to cry. Between getting two children into car seats, driving, parking, loading them into the cart, locating the drinking fountain--I looked at my watch--45 minutes had passed. He was probably hungry.

Mark still had his newborn cry. I am convinced a newborn’s wail was designed by nature to aid in survival by triggering an instant sense of alarm and sympathy in any listener. This genetic disposition is useful, I am sure, but I found that as Mark yelled louder and louder, the grocery store came to a complete stop. And there I was wheeling down aisles grabbing items as fast as I could.

Kate, sensing my stress, climbed up on her knees, turned backward and tried sticking a pacifier in Mark’s mouth. When he kept refusing, she yielded, reseated herself, put the pacifier in her own mouth and began sucking.

“For babies,” I said extracting the pacifier.

I held the pacifier by the handle between my teeth, searched for a clean place to tuck it and tried to keep moving. We proceeded: a howling baby, a toddler repeating “Please pacifier. I said ‘please!’ ” and a mother with a pacifier in her mouth.

I had been working on teaching Kate colors. So when we entered the produce department, we found a welcomed distraction.

“Radish! Radish!” She pointed.

“Radishes are red,” I had said many times to her as I listed objects that are red.

Kate wanted one.

Eager to replace a pacifier fixation with a radish, I pulled one off the bunch, rubbed it on my shirt and gave it to her.

Delighted, Kate popped the radish in her mouth.

As I was bagging lettuce and tomatoes and Mark was still screaming, Kate entered her own world. She rolled the radish around in her mouth, spit it out and then popped it back in again. At least she was at peace.

The cashier heard us coming and paged for help. An older woman in line let me go in front of her. I unloaded food hand over hand while the older woman cooed and made bird noises at Mark.

“This always works to calm my grandchildren,” she said with confidence.

Mark cried harder.

Kate put her radish on the belt to send it through to the cashier “to pay for it.”

At last, I was able to take Mark out of his car seat. I took a deep breath. We were making it. He was drenched and his face was almost purple. His crying slowed to a sputter, an indignant whimper.

The grocery store started to move again and everyone else seemed to take a deep breath too.

They were thinking, “She’s almost gone.”

As I attempted to fill out the check one-handed, I had a difficult time keeping Mark’s head from flopping over. When his head would drop down, he was inches from my breast and started trying to nurse.

My milk started to come in and I felt my bra soak. I tried to crouch forward so that I wouldn’t spot my T-shirt, navy blue, but was too late. I now had two wet spots, the size of silver dollars, glistening on my chest.

I planned to push Kate in the cart with one hand and hold Mark and his head over the milk spots with the other hand. But when the man bagging groceries offered to help me out to the car, I conceded that I had left my pride somewhere on aisle three and that I would not be shy about accepting his assistance.

Kate, who had been intently watching the man bag groceries, saw that we were about to leave and became frantic.

“Radish? Where’s my radish?”

I looked at the man who had bagged the groceries.

He shook his head.

And then Kate and I looked at the cashier. She was pretty, a Julia Roberts type. Nutty looking, curly brown hair and she was blushing and chewing. Her store pin read, “Let me help make your day.”

She had eaten the radish.

Kate started to cry. I decided to try to make this educational and started explaining to Kate the words “embarrass” and “blush.”

“Radishes are red and when people blush they turn red.”

“I thought it just fell out,” the cashier managed, still chewing the whole radish. “I like radishes,” she said.

“My radish,” Kate cried.

The cashier picked up the speaker and paged the produce department, “Produce, bring one radish to the register.”

A man wearing a green apron approached us carrying one radish.

“That’s for me,” Kate said looking at the cashier.

Kate stopped crying and took the radish.

The cashier apologized and then we caravaned out to our car.

And this is how I arrived home with no milk.