http://www.raisingbakersfield.com/home/Blog/Christina/27618 If I would have been speaking out loud in Vons today - &nbsp; &quot;Oh Dear Lord, please give me the strength to manage my children for the next 20 minutes, and still come out of it sane.&nbsp; Please&nbsp;keep Mitchell from crying, Kaitlynn from running into that one lady, again, and Andrew from collapsing the baking potato display...... again.&nbsp;&nbsp; Give me serenity so that I do not scream outrageously, in turn hurting the ears of these poor, unsuspecting&nbsp;kidless grocery shoppers today.&nbsp; Grant me the creativty to give a new answer for the next time I hear, &quot;Mommy can we buy this?&quot;.&nbsp; Prevent my fingers from dialing the nearest orphanage the next time Andrew 'hides' from me in the adjacent aisle.&nbsp; And most importantly, bestow upon me the patience to not beat my children for breaking each and every single rule that we discussed in detail repeatedly during&nbsp;the car ride over here. (sigh) Amen.&nbsp; That's it! You're going straight home and taking a nap! No you cannot have those fruit snacks!! No dessert for you guys tonight! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry about that sir. Kaitlynn watch where you're going.&nbsp; Move out&nbsp;of the way so&nbsp;she can get through Andrew. Leave those roses alone! Please put the&nbsp;yogurt in the cart gently.&nbsp; Sorry, we still have to get tortillas and cornstarch................&nbsp;AHHHHHHH!&quot; If I would have been speaking out loud in Vons today - &nbsp; &quot;Oh Dear Lord, please give me the strength to manage my children for the next 20 minutes, and still come out of it sane.&nbsp; Please&nbsp;keep Mitchell from crying, Kaitlynn from running into that one lady, again, and Andrew from collapsing the baking potato display...... again.&nbsp;&nbsp; Give me serenity so that I do not scream outrageously, in turn hurting the ears of these poor, unsuspecting&nbsp;kidless grocery shoppers today.&nbsp; Grant me the creativty to give a new answer for the next time I hear, &quot;Mommy can we buy this?&quot;.&nbsp; Prevent my fingers from dialing the nearest orphanage the next time Andrew 'hides' from me in the adjacent aisle.&nbsp; And most importantly, bestow upon me the patience to not beat my children for breaking each and every single rule that we discussed in detail repeatedly during&nbsp;the car ride over here. (sigh) Amen.&nbsp; That's it! You're going straight home and taking a nap! No you cannot have those fruit snacks!! No dessert for you guys tonight! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry about that sir. Kaitlynn watch where you're going.&nbsp; Move out&nbsp;of the way so&nbsp;she can get through Andrew. Leave those roses alone! Please put the&nbsp;yogurt in the cart gently.&nbsp; Sorry, we still have to get tortillas and cornstarch................&nbsp;AHHHHHHH!&quot; en-us <p>Yeah.&nbsp; We had a couple of trips like that, and then we started having &quot;training sessions.&quot;&nbsp; The hubby and I would plan shopping trips and one&nbsp; of us would be waiting for &quot;the call&quot; from the other.&nbsp; So, here's how it went:</p> <p>I go shopping with the kiddo.&nbsp; (She already knows that if she's &quot;not fun to be with&quot; then she goes to her room until she can be fun to be around.)&nbsp; The kiddo starts crying/whining/repeatedly asking/grabbing/fill in the blank with anything that makes for a &quot;not fun&quot; shopping trip.&nbsp; I tell her she has a choice:&nbsp; she can be fun to be with or she can go to her room.&nbsp; Well, of course she thinks the &quot;go to your room&quot; part is bogus.&nbsp; If she continues not to be fun, I call the hubby, and he's right there to pick her up and take her home to her room.&nbsp; After a few of these sessions, she's learned to be a pretty good shopper.&nbsp;</p> <p>Now there have been times when I couldn't enforce the &quot;go to your room&quot; part, so I don't give that as an option.&nbsp; We have gone to the car before.&nbsp; But overall, the training sessions worked.</p> <p>I feel for you.&nbsp; Days like that are exhausting.</p> <p>Oh, and don't you love when a kid throws herself down in the parking lot and proceeds to have the tantrum of the century?</p> http://www.raisingbakersfield.com/home/Blog/Christina/27618/#c_247569 http://www.raisingbakersfield.com/home/Blog/Christina/27618/#c_247569 <p>Yeah.&nbsp; We had a couple of trips like that, and then we started having &quot;training sessions.&quot;&nbsp; The hubby and I would plan shopping trips and one&nbsp; of us would be waiting for &quot;the call&quot; from the other.&nbsp; So, here's how it went:</p> <p>I go shopping with the kiddo.&nbsp; (She already knows that if she's &quot;not fun to be with&quot; then she goes to her room until she can be fun to be around.)&nbsp; The kiddo starts crying/whining/repeatedly asking/grabbing/fill in the blank with anything that makes for a &quot;not fun&quot; shopping trip.&nbsp; I tell her she has a choice:&nbsp; she can be fun to be with or she can go to her room.&nbsp; Well, of course she thinks the &quot;go to your room&quot; part is bogus.&nbsp; If she continues not to be fun, I call the hubby, and he's right there to pick her up and take her home to her room.&nbsp; After a few of these sessions, she's learned to be a pretty good shopper.&nbsp;</p> <p>Now there have been times when I couldn't enforce the &quot;go to your room&quot; part, so I don't give that as an option.&nbsp; We have gone to the car before.&nbsp; But overall, the training sessions worked.</p> <p>I feel for you.&nbsp; Days like that are exhausting.</p> <p>Oh, and don't you love when a kid throws herself down in the parking lot and proceeds to have the tantrum of the century?</p> <p>haha, i feel that way and I only have one. :)</p> http://www.raisingbakersfield.com/home/Blog/Christina/27618/#c_248677 http://www.raisingbakersfield.com/home/Blog/Christina/27618/#c_248677 <p>haha, i feel that way and I only have one. :)</p>