Target Met

Aw, who am I kidding? I love a good shopping with toddlers story.  If I had more readers, which I don't really want, I could write a huge sponsored post on 10 Tricks for Shopping with Toddlers or something.  I can see Buzz Feed or some other page sharing it now. Click Bait is what I call those articles.  I'm so guilty of clicking on all of them. I don't know why; I can't help it. They aren't helpful; they just want likes and clicks so they can get more sponsors.

Shopping with Toddlers: Nailed it!

Here are a few things I do to prepare myself for a trip to Target with my B Team:

• Wear my boots. They mean business. No one better mess with me when I have my boots on.
• Eat. Preferably something with fat and lots of staying power. Nothing causes a toddler shopping trip to fail faster than a mom having a sugar crash.
• Go potty before I leave the house. Duh. Who wants to take three little kids into a public bathroom? From having them crawl on the floor under the wall dividers to shouting embarrassing things for others to hear, yeah, we don't do that.  Unless we are potty training.
• All bets are off when a child is potty training.  There is nothing quite like a toddler who has to go potty, but is scared to use a public toilet ("Take me to my home potty!" is what I heard today). Those automatic flushers are the devil and have caused months of potty training regression.
• Keep the list short. Short enough to memorize. The gas for a return trip is worth not breaking down sobbing in public.
• When I first park my van, I just sit in my seat and make sure I have just the essentials to get me through the store. No extras. One diaper, one set of wipes, a wallet, a phone, and a list just in case my memory blanks. Everything else stays in the van. I leave everyone buckled and get a cart and bring it to the van. I load the baby first because he is the least likely to jump out of the cart and run into traffic.  Heidi is second because she sits in the cart and can be restrained with a seat belt.  Lula is last.  
• In the store we move according to our plan, but make time for side trips.  Lula really needs lots of conversation to help her develop her speaking skills.  We spent a lot of time talking about what we saw today.
• Snacks: always buy one. Always. They have something to look forward to and something to fear losing if they misbehave.  But don't pick it out too early in the trip because they may just freak out because they don't understand the concept of purchasing the treat before consuming it.  
• And back into the parking lot is when I have Lula put her hand flat on the Target emblem on the cart.  This gives her an anchor so she doesn't go dashing off into traffic when a car scares her.
• I have my snack (fresh fruit-yummo!) before I drive so I can concentrate on not listening to everyone cry about getting kicked by a sister and dropped binkies and being stuck in a hot sweater in a car seat for two hours while I drive the last hour home.

The B Team has dish duty on Tuesday nights. We also mop for obvious reasons.

This is all just for entertainment purposes of course. I know I'm not the expert at toddler wrangling considering the numerous toddler melt downs I've dealt with.  As my B Team becomes my primary focus and I start teaching them skills that I taught the A Team years ago (see? we've been hand washing dishes forever!) I really start to enjoy these guys and their wild ways.  After Daniel and Lula burned out on dishes and Jason burned out on the bouncy chair, we all went to play Minecraft together instead of just watching a movie like we normally do.

The B Team and I had a good day. (Except for all the crying that happened between Target and Minecraft)