No Running, No Yelling, No Tasting

When I depart for the grocery store with my car full of kids, I often have to perform a mental pep talk to get myself to walk inside. That big building sometimes seems to represent endless negotiations for sugary cereal, illegal produce tasting and the potential for a meltdown in every aisle. 

I try to do my grocery shopping on my own, but there are times when our schedule is too full for a solo run or I have to fulfill the list of things that I forgot on what was supposed to be my one weekly trip to the store. 

When my two oldest kids were in their toddler years, I had a last resort in the back of my car, reserved for grocery stops that occurred just before naptime or on a day when my kids were extra cranky. A Tootsie Pop offered them something so rarely enjoyed that they became engrossed in their suckers and forgot to fight with each other or give me trouble.                                                 

Now that they are getting a little older, my kids are getting too smart for the Tootsie Pop trick. I’m sure if I offered it, they would just cause trouble between licks. So I asked a few friends about their tips for trouble-free grocery shopping and heard some great ideas. 

My friend Angie has a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old. Her older child helps make the list, and then is assigned to looking for “her” items on the list while making their way around the store. The toddler is kept busy with Elmo spotting, a game where he yells “Elmo!” every time he spots the character on a package of food. 

Another friend, Cathy, had an idea that grows with the child as they get older. She gave her young son a calculator so he could pretend to add up their purchases as they shopped. Now that he’s older, he keeps the actual tally to see how their grocery bill should total up. Cathy also recommended making sure that the length of the grocery trip matched the age of the kids. She says a mom should never try to tackle an hour-long grocery trip with small children. 

I also got an interesting perspective from my friend Jess, who works as a checker at a grocery store. She said that she and other checkers like to hand out stickers to the kids as their moms pay the bill to keep things from getting too crazy. She called it a bribe. I don’t care what you call it. It sounds brilliant to me. 

One funny grocery store trick happened by accident. We were in Aldi one day a couple of years ago, and just as my son was being silly and yelled something, the checker sounded the loud buzzer for help up front. I looked at my son wide-eyed and said in jest, “Uh, oh. I guess they really don’t like yelling in here.” I completely forgot about it until the next time we were in the store and the buzzer sounded and my son said, “I wonder who’s in trouble!”  Now I can just warn my kids that the buzzer is going to sound if things are getting a little nutty. 

Our grocery trips are peaceful and easy nine times out of 10. But when that one horrendous meltdown happens, invariably in the aisle with the disapproving eyes of several other shoppers that stare you down, you better have some tricks ready before you head out the next week. Otherwise, you may never make it out of your car.