Shopping, Screaming, Smarties, Sanity

Marc's been taking the van to work a little more often this week since he's had some really early mornings and we haven't been sleeping well. Our cupboards were getting pretty empty & I really needed to make a trip to the grocery store. With Lexi taking a morning nap, its a little tricky to find a time that all 3 kids are going to be cooperative. It was 11:00 when Marc got the car back to me, still early enough that we weren't encroaching on the boys' naptime too much and with activities in the evening it was then or never. The second Tyler got in the car he was a mess. Screaming at me "don't go that way Mommy!" "I wanna go home!" etc. We show up at the store, "Not that store!" "Don't unbuckle me!" "I'm not going". Oh to live in the days where you could leave your child in the car and not worry about it.....I unbuckle him against his will which gets him madder, get Lexi loaded into the Bjorn, threaten Tyler if he didn't stop screaming we weren't going to go to the waterpark that night, when that didn't work, I drug him into the store and tried to shove him into the shopping cart. We made quite the scene. I tried to talk reasonably, with a screaming 3 year old that's hard to do. I decided I wasn't going to give in, he could scream or not scream, but I was going to pick up the food we needed. So off we went through the aisles of Maceys like a circus act. It got a little more difficult when he tried to climb out of the cart each time I stopped to try and grab something off the shelf. I was flagged down by one of the workers there and he asked if some smarties would help. I thanked him and rewarded Bryce for his good behavior and made Tyler sit, stop crying, and be pleasant before he could get his. Once he decided he wanted the smarties, he was a happy little kid again and not a murmur or complaint. We finished our shopping in peace, had a very pleasant conversation with the cashier and left to go get free burgers at Arbys. I'm a huge fan of Maceys. Everyone who works there is kind and helpful, their prices are great, produce/meats are fresh, and they're open 24 hours a day, except Sunday.