What I Learned This Week: Who Knew Shopping with Three Kids Could Be So Easy?

It’s summertime again, which means the kids are out of school and I no longer have the luxury of running errands alone.  Yesterday we had a delightful morning at the Sun & Earth factory tour organized by two Philly mom bloggers, Beth and Sarah, and then we had a few hours to kill before a dentist appointment for my daughter.  It didn’t make sense to return home in between, so I decided to run into the grocery store.  My kids were not amused by this turn of events, but they went along cooperatively.  I may or may not have bribed them with a box of Lucky Charms — a rare treat in our house.

When we got to the door, my 3-year-old immediately honed in on the cart with the car in front.  I swear, the child has sonar for those things.  I agreed because I knew she was getting tired and heading for a meltdown, and I didn’t want to leave the store empty-handed like I did the last time I had three kids at the grocery store.

She happily climbed in the car, and my older son and daughter flanked the sides, and we paraded into the store, ready for battle.  Soon my son asked to push the cart, and since I hate and despise pushing those carts, I agreed to let him give it a try.  Surprisingly, he did quite well.  And more surprisingly, my other child didn’t put up a fight to push it herself.  She and I walked ahead and chose the items to deposit into the cart.

When we got to the cash register, my son jumped ahead and immediately began unloading the cart while I just stood there and checked email on my Blackberry supervised.  Then as I was paying, he made his way to the end of the conveyor belt and started loading groceries into bags.  The cashier handed me my receipt as my son picked up all four bags and started towards the door.  And that, as they say, was that!

When we got to the car, I lifted the back hatch for my son to set the groceries inside, and I noticed that he had neatly bagged the breads in one bag, the lunchmeat and light-weight items in another bag, and the boxes in another.  Which just goes to prove my philosophy that you can’t teach grocery bagging.  It’s an innate ability.  You have it or you don’t.  (And most professional baggers don’t. Which drives me mad, in case you hadn’t guessed.)

The shopping trip was so successful that I actually decided to drag them into two more stores before we went to the dreaded dentist appointment.

So this week I learned that life actually DOES get easier as the kids get older.  What a relief!

Now I want to know what YOU learned this week!  Here are the carnival rules.

1. Any time this week, publish your What I Learned This Week post on your blog. (It can be one sentence. It can be several paragraphs. It can be a list. It can be an essay.  It can be serious. It can be silly. It can be thoughtful and profound. It can be sarcastic. It can be sentimental. It can be ANYTHING that you learned as long as it is of a family friendly nature.)

2. Within that post, please mention the What I Learned This Week carnival and link to this post.

3. Then link up with the Mr. Linky form down below. (Please only link if you have written a What I Learned This Week post. And please link directly to the carnival post, not the main page of your blog. And finally, please do not put a Mr. Linky on your post. THANKS!)

4. Then visit the other participants and see what they learned this week. And comment, comment, comment! Because we ALL love comments.  Spread the love!

Alrightythen. Ready, Set, GO!