When Aubrey was a toddler, she and I often went shopping and ran errands. She enjoyed listening and signing along to music in the car. And when we arrived at the store, she would quietly sit in a shopping cart or stroller, munching on a snack, reading a book or playing with a toy I picked up off the shelf. Leaving the house with Riley is a completely different story.

Riley starts fussing the minute her bottom touches the car seat.  She begs to get “out, out, out” of the shopping cart or stroller. She will look at a book or toy for about two seconds and then toss it on the ground. (She actually finds this tossing game to be quite funny, but it makes shopping rather difficult.) She’ll begrudgingly munch on a snack or two, but then she quickly decides she really wants (fill in the blank), the only snack I didn’t bring in my bag. So then she’s right back to demanding that I get her “out, out, out.”

If I would let Riley race around the store like a tornado, pulling things of the shelves and grabbing whatever she found interesting, she would be a pretty big fan of trips to the store. Shopping with her in tow, however, would become that much more impossible.

Of course Riley loves trips to the park and the play area at the mall, but there are times when I have to go to Target for paper towels or to Publix for milk. Do I really have to resort to starting all my shopping when the sun goes down?

I am crossing my fingers in hopes that Riley’s disgust toward running errands will eventually come to an end when she gets a little older. Do you have a child who isn’t fond of going to the store? Do you have any tricks to keep little ones occupied? My best bribery thus far is a can of play-dough, but even that only works for so long.

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