A Shopping Disaster

One of my first grocery trips with all three kids ended in tears ..... and I did most of the crying.  When my husband came home from work that night I asked him to go out and get me a bottle of wine. Without having to tell him, he knew, it was one of those days.

I reviewed that grocery trip in my head for days and realized it was totally my fault (here comes the mommy guilt).  I was out with the kids all day running errands trying to get everything done in one day. The kids were overtired, bored and hungry except for baby Jack who'd been sleeping in his car seat all day and by the time we got to the grocery store he'd had enough of being confined to his seat. Not to mention how tired, cranky and  frustrated I was  running around the store like a mad woman cuz that grocery list I was working on all week was left on the kitchen counter and all the coupons I searched and dug for in my purse were expired. I've had enough. The next trips to the store were like a dream. We'd go after lunch during the week, the kids would be fed and the grocery store wasn't as busy. Jack almost always slept at this time and I could easily transfer his car seat from the car onto the shopping cart without waking him up. He'd sleep till I got home. I would get my 5 year old to read over our shopping list on the way to the store and get the boys to see how many items they could remember. Getting them involved in the process made it fun for them. The boys payed attention to products on shelves and pointed out if they noticed anything from our list.  I'm not big on junk food but I would promise to buy them gum if they behaved in the store (bribing almost always works). 

Even though it's a lot easier now, store displays will get ruined, the stack of oranges will come falling down and a clean up on aisle 5 will be needed, I do have 3 boys after all.