Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The Shop-O-Rama

One of Carder's favorite books lately is "Llama Llama Mad at Mama" by Anna Dewdney.  In this rivetting tale, Llama Llama goes shopping with his Mama and throws a major tantrum because he is tired of shopping.  But after some intervention by Mama, Llama's attitude turns around and he happily helps Mama finish the shopping.

Lately, every time we need to go to the store, I have called it the Shop-O-Rama and have asked him if he can help me like Llama helps Mama.  This has really helped cut down on our mid-store meltdowns.  (Thank God because there is probably not anything I dread more than the meltdown in the middle of the grocery store where onlookers just shake their heads at you because of your poor parenting skills...)

This week, I forgot to get 2 items when we went to the store on Saturday.  Derek had to go in to the office, so after solo parenting my way through Church, I decided to run to the store to pick up the things we forgot.  We normally shop at a big box chain store because their produce is much better and their prices are less painful on our budget.

But since we only needed 2 things, I decided to pay the higher price for the convenience of the smaller parking lot and store.  Carder loves this store because they have huge buffalo heads mounted in the front and the back of the store.  They also have some kid sized shopping carts.

This trip, since he is getting to be such a good little helper and has been doing pretty good about staying close when walking in a store, I let him push the cart.  He felt like such a big boy pushing his cart and groceries around the store. He excitedly pointed out apples and bananas.  When I told him what was next, he would repeat the item as we walked toward that section of the store.  Adorable...

When we were done, I asked him if he would like for Mommy to pay for his groceries and he said, "Yes."  Smart boy.  Get Mommy to pay for your food...

He enjoyed pushing his shopping cart so much that he didn't want to leave the store.  Once I convinced him to check out, he pushed his cart over to the little carts and put it back where it belonged so that it would be there for him the next time we came to the store.

My Little Shopper - Looking up at the Buffalo Head

 

 

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Catching Up

Newsflash - I suck at blogging.

I'm Playing Catch Up with my Blog Posts.  And if you want to know JUST HOW BADLY I suck at blogging, I have been working on this since New Years Eve.  I still have about 4 posts in draft format that I need to finish, but if I don't post this "Catch Up" post now, some of my readers (if I have any left at this point) will never get through all of the links I have embedded here.

Some of these were posted days or weeks ago and you may have seen them if you read new posts through Google Reader.

But, I am a tardy poster who is OCD about things being in consecutive order.  And so that I don't lose the ability to follow a timeline when I look back at my blog, I have nackdated the postings and I am going to add this post with links to some of the back dated posts I am adding in case you missed them.

You can read about Carder's first trip to the Zoo this past summer and our trip to Georgia back in October.

You can read about how we spent Thanksgiving 2012 here.

You can read about our  Christmas Cards, Carder's first visit with Santa, and our first time making Sugar Cookies.  You can read about how Carder was sick at Christmas - AGAIN.  And if that isn't enough of our Christmas for you, you can read about how we celebrated Christmas with the In Laws and Christmas 2012.

You can read how we spent New Years Eve 2012.  You can also read about how Carder has been missing the excitement of the Nativity at the Church accross the street from us.

And if you are interest in how we spent our random days, I have plenty of other catching up for you.  You can read about Carder's first Phrases and how many words he can now say.  We have been having a lot of winter fun lately - Snowballs, snowshoeing, and walking.  You can also read about how he ended up looking like Robin Hood, how he got stuck in his bookcase, and how I discovered a new way to keep Carder busy.

If you feel so inclined, you can read about how my iPhone Died a horrible death back in February.  We also did some very productive vehicle shopping in February as well.

I promise to try to do better in the future...Oh, who am I kidding???  Better late than never, right???