Problem: You need food. This means you have to go to the grocery store. This means going to a place with forbidden goodies hanging from every nook, cranny and crevice, with a strapped-in, mildly annoyed to threatening-to-blow toddler. For an hour. While you try to remember what's on your shopping list.
Solution: Find something boring that you're already going to buy that the baby can hold while you shop. For us, it was a big cheese block - one for each baby. I always hit the dairy section first and even by that time the twins are reaching for various treats (usually in glass containers), so I pick out a few blocks of cheese, make as if to put them in the cart, and then, instead, hand them to the children. They are gratified, study their haul, and we can move on. When the magic of the cheese wears off, we're usually in the pasta section, and I switch out the blocks for pasta which the babies can shake endlessly.
Ways your baby can trick you:
Problem: As your kids get older, they're going to need something a little more stimulating than a cheese block. At this point, they know what cheese is for, and they have the teeth to do it.
Can you see that? The flash makes it hard. That's a hole chewed through the cheese wrapper and a chunk eaten out of the cheese. First, how awful that my babies were sticking something in their mouths that's been in who knows how many people's hands while I ignorantly perused the seafood section? Secondly, try explaining to a cashier that, yes, that's your cheese, and you let your kids do that to it. It's uncomfortable.
Solution: Bring a few toys your child hasn't seen in a while in your purse when you go shopping. When you're searching through the foodstuffs, and they start to get restless, you can give them their own toy as a treat to play with while you shop. This will only work if they really haven't seen it in a while, though, otherwise, it's old news. If you're still going to choose something from the store itself, my advice is make a better choice than thinly wrapped cheese.
I get them a bagel to eat while we shop. I always go at breakfast, or snack time.. kill 2 birds with one stone!
ReplyDeleteBRILLIANT!
ReplyDeleteiPod (or another thing of the sort) that you can put a movie on. I even have my kids watch stuff while their getting their hair cut.
ReplyDeleteAt the co-op I shop at most of the time, the produce people sometimes give kids an apple or banana - and they don't mind if you take one for them to have if no one is around to hand them one. So I get my daughter an apple first thing, and she eats it while I shop. It helps A LOT.
ReplyDeleteOnce William bit through a banana just like that, right through the peel. Another woman was in the aisle with us when I was like, "OMG! No, sweetie, wait until we get home" and she gave me this *wow you are NOT a good mom* look. So glad to know I'm not alone!
ReplyDeleteHa! Babies. It's a good thing they're cute.
ReplyDeleteMine has learned that the surest way to get me to buy that candy bar at the checkout is to grab it then quickly bite through the wrapper.
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ReplyDeletehttp://twitter.com/craftsexaminer
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Have a great weekend!
I had the girls who ate into the cheese too. After the cheese incident I let her hold dog biscuits and while I was looking at meat she opened and chomped into one. True.Story.
ReplyDeleteNow we shop at the co-op mostly and they can be in charge of their own cart that is small and easy for them to push. This is dumb, drives me nuts, and I always come home feeling like I need booze. If they were toddlers still I'd put them in the cart with netflix on the iphone.