Shopping Trip Success

Today I had no choice but to take the kids grocery shopping with me today. I usually go when Jerry can watch the kids. I like doing that way so I can get away for a little bit, but for some reason we just ran out of everything all at once, so we had to go today. The farther along I get in my pregnancy the more tired and excused I feel, so the thought of taking the two kids shopping exhausted me before I even got in the car. Taking Kate shopping is alot of work, there is something about a store that makes her wired, and overly excited. While with Caleb it mellows him out, and he likes to look around at everything, they are polar opposite in that respect. So I planned ahead, I got the usual toy and snack for Caleb which always keeps him happy. To help Kate I took a tip off of a show I saw about letting Kate help with the grocery list. I drew pictures of what we needed along with the words and put a box by each item for her to check it off once we put it in the cart. I had an old clip board from my teaching years and put a pen on a piece of ribbon. I had about ten items on the list all of which would be spread out through the store so she would be busy the whole time. It actually really work and went really well she had a great time and it made for a very low stress visit to the store. I often times have to keep her from touching everything and not holding on to the cart and staying out of others way. It's more work to take Kate to the store then it is to actually get what you need, she is just so excited to shop it hard to keep her calm. Kate was able to stay on task and stay focused and out of trouble. I don't know why I didn't think of this myself. We even had a box to check for her to get a treat for being good and getting everything on her list. She was so excited to help and to remind me of things we needed, she said she had a lot of fun and wants to do it all over again. All in all it was a successful shopping trip, I actually enjoyed this trip to the store with my kids, it went really smoothly.