This is a shameless brag post so if you're not me, please skip it!
I have to brag on my kids.
(Wait, what? Maegan, surely not.)
My kids do GREAT in the store.
I fully understand that by blogging about this, I am begging capricious bad luck demons to make my kids go super crazy next time I go shopping.
But even if that does happen, I want the record to show that as of today, Will is about two and half, Barrett is almost seven months, and upon visiting the store one to two times every week, neither have EVER given me any grief.
A couple things that help are a.) visiting the toy aisle when we first get there, b.) the promise of being able to watch home movies on my phone in the checkout line, and c.) having the horsey ride as an incentive at the very end. In the toy aisle, he plays and plays, testing out all the tractor buttons, while I finalize my shopping list. Sometimes I even let him pick a toy out to hold as I shop, and then we put it back near the end.
Sure, Will can get a little cranky and hungry if I cut it too close to naptime. In that case, I either give him my phone to watch home videos (which he calls "videos of Papa," from the days when he called my dad "papa" and only ever watched one video of the two of them) or I commit the sketchy practice of feeding him food before I've bought it.
(If I do that... it's always per unit, not per pound. I'm not a blatant thief!)
Today I took the boys to Salvation Army. I needed a couple fall play shirts and sweatshirts for Will. I roamed the aisles and found a cheap toy tractor for Will to play with, and Barrett hung out on my back in the Ergo.
Green tags were five for $5, so I figured I'd tackle What I Hate Most and look for a couple things for myself. As I flipped through rack after rack, Will played in the cart. "Oh! Yookit dat big mountain!" [driving the tractor up the "mountain" of shirts] "'Coopin'... dirt.... oh! Yookit dat mommy! I'm 'coopin' dirt!"
He asked to get down and play on the floor and so I let him, telling him he absolutely needed to stay next to me. And he did! In fact, for the rest of the shopping trip, he walked beside me. When I tried on clothes, he told me they looked "pree, mommy." He was eager to leave the fitting room but I kept telling him to "hang on, we're almost there...", which he would repeat back in his chirpy voice. "Almos' dere!"
When we emerged, he cried, "We're all DONE!"
Barrett, who had transferred from my back to the front of the cart, sat bobbing his head and looking around as tiny and as precious as could be.
(As of last night, he's 18.6 pounds - two pounds gained since his August 18th appointment! I'm so relieved!)
After that, it was onto the grocery store. I'd spent more time at SA than I'd planned, and Barrett needed to nurse, so Will sat in his carseat and ate a snack while I fed Barrett in the Meijer parking lot. We were reallly cutting into naptime. Like, by an hour and a half. So we skipped the toy aisle and I flew around and William helped me check the items off my shopping list app and before we knew it, we were riding the horsey. I regretfully told Will we only had time for one ride, and he asked, "Oh! Boy ridin' it?" I looked around to see if there was a little boy waiting for a turn but there was none. "I'm sure some boy will want to ride it after you," I nodded to him. When the ride was over, he got off without complaint.
Maybe Barrett will be my store tantrum thrower. Maybe it will be child #3. Maybe Will is going to have a really difficult third year. But let me state, unequivocally, here and now, that my kids are the Best Store Kids Ever!
..........and now I'm REALLY only blogging for myself, since no one else but my parents will have appreciated this self-serving drivel.
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