Virtual grocery shopping

I tried something new today, and am really tempted to do it again:

I ordered my groceries online last night before I went to bed, and they were delivered to my front door at 10:45 this morning.

Before you judge me, let me explain what has happened the last few times we've taken Isabelle to the grocery store. She goes through phases where it's hard to take her out in public because she doesn't understand that she can't run around and destroy things at her leisure, and so when we tell her "no" she has a tantrum. A couple weeks ago, after Jason reported several nightmare grocery store incidents after taking her on solo trips to the store, I accompanied the two of them - thinking it would be easier to shop if it were two against one.

Not so much. She refuses to sit in the front of shopping carts now - when we're at Target she climbs into the back and plays with whatever items are in the cart, but when we're buying a week's worth of groceries there just isn't room. We've tried the giant carts that are shaped like cars, but it's too easy for her to unbuckle herself and jump out.

Anyway, back to our last grocery shopping trip... that day, the seatbelt in the cart was broken, so she kept climbing out and trying to grab things off the shelves. When we'd try and take them away, she'd start laughing wildly and run away as fast as she could, nearly knocking people over in the process. At one point I saw her come tearing around the corner with an armful of stuffed animals, and then she ditched the animals and started tearing boxes of Nilla Wafers off an end-cap display - and jumping up and down on the boxes. Then she grabbed a giant orange cone that said "wet floor" and started dragging it down an aisle. When we'd try to pick her up she'd go limp, and finally she had a complete meltdown in the middle of the frozen foods section and Jason had to take her out to the car to calm down while I finished shopping.

So, neither one of us have taken her back to the grocery store since - I think we both have post-traumatic stress disorder. But this weekend, with Jason out of town we can't split up the errands and chores, so I decided to take advantage of Von's personal shopping service because they were offering free delivery for first-time customers. And, to be honest, it's been a long and crazy week and I wanted to be lazy and order groceries from the comfort of my couch.

It was SO convenient, and easy too! The Von's online shopping service is organized by "aisle," and I didn't have trouble finding anything I needed. I also got to see which items were on sale and zoom in to specific products to read labels. And I scheduled delivery by choosing from two-hour blocks of time where I knew I'd be home. The delivery man showed up promptly at my front door this morning and set all the groceries on my kitchen counter for me.

I would definitely order groceries online again, however normal delivery charges range from $9.95 - $12.95 depending on time of day you schedule delivery - so it will have to be an occasional luxury for weekends like these where I'm a single mom. But I was impressed with how easy it was to navigate the website - and even better, when my groceries showed up the cold items were still cold and all the produce I ordered was fresh and not wilty.

Every once in a while it's nice to take advantage of technology!