- Make sure to try to make arrangements to have someone watch your kids, so that you can shop blissfully uninterrupted.
- Get out the approximately 12 inch long list you’ve been compiling for months on your Iphone or the dog-eared paper list you’ve been carrying around in your purse for months.
- Stop to look at what’s new in the dollar section, with the same enthusiasm as if it were the new Fall line by your favorite designer. Try to resist the urge to buy said items that were not on your list, but give in and end up spending at least $20 on crap that you don’t really need, but justify to yourself as “educational” stuff for the kids.
- Breath in that Target air and feel strangely at home and positively giddy.
- Feel slightly overwhelmed at the choices that exist in the toy section and incredulous at how low the prices are for items that are likely double the cost at “home” and considered luxuries. Try to find the 1 toy that each kid has had their heart set on!!
- Buy the exact same item for your kid in 2 sizes–because there is no coming back until next year and those darn kids never stop growing!
- Consider getting another cart, for just a millisecond, but decide you don’t want to look completely insane.
- Buy 3 pairs of sunglasses, 10 pairs of underwear and socks, and 40 barrettes for each child, because these items are strangely expensive at “home” and always seem to get lost.
- Buy 6 tubes of the only flavor of toothpaste or baby aspirin that your child will tolerate and they only sell in the states–feel a tad bad about indulging them, but hope on some level that these indulgences will make up for the things you know they are missing by not growing up in the US (like story time at your local library, beautiful parks, safe playground equipment, etc.)
- Go to sample aisle and stock up on trial sized baby wipes and toilet paper to keep in your purse/diaper bag and miscellaneous trial sized items that you realize are weirdly not available in most countries outside of the US and then realize how privileged the US is compared to the rest of the world when it comes to availability of products.
- Realize that you are buying less “essentials” than last time and that you might just be acclimating to your new “home.”
- Check list and items at least 3 times to make absolutely sure you haven’t forgotten any essentials you cannot find in your “home” country.
- Discover that you have indeed forgotten something–an essential item, and say to yourself, “I cannot believe I almost forgot that!!” The horror!!
- Feel a tad embarrassed when other people look at your overflowing cart and you start unnecessarily explaining to the cashier that you “live out of the country, so you have to stock up on things when you come to the U.S.”
- Try to put as many items in as few bags as possible, so that husband doesn’t think that you went crazy and bought the whole store.
- Have a moment of sticker shock when you see the total is more than a monthly car payment (or two) and immediately divide said total by 12 in head to try to justify expense for buying a year’s worth of supplies all at once.
- Wonder if there will be room enough in the luggage for everything or if you will have to buy another piece of luggage (again) to make it home and how mad the hubby might be.
- Leave the parking lot with the same satisfaction that a caveman probably felt when returning home from a hunt with food to maintain his family.
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