Thing 3 eats. A lot. You may recall his “Michelin Man” nickname as a baby.
But he is VERY particular about what he eats. So much, in fact, that he prefers to do his own grocery shopping. Lucky for us, the local supermarket caters to just his demographic: three year olds who watch a lot of movies.
With a pint sized shopping cart, Thing 3 makes his way through the aisles, until he finds all his favorites. First up, the mac and cheese section. The store is very smart to put the Toy Story themed boxes within his reach.
Unlike SuburbanDaddy, who zig-zags across the store looking for items on his list, Thing 3 knows his way around like a pro.
Of course, his favorite spot is the dairy aisle. With the amount of milk he drinks, it’s like the opening scene from Leaving Las Vegas when Nicholas Cage dances with a shopping cart down the aisle at the liquor store.
No trip to the store would be complete without a tantrum.? In this case, it happens when we need to take all the items out of his cart and pay for them.?? Here he is sitting on the floor and crying in protest.
Not to worry, they have free balloons on the way out.? Balloons are a sure fire tantrum stopper.? Just make sure not to let go of the balloon in the parking lot.? That would be the nuclear bomb of tantrums.? Trust me.
The concept for this blog was intriguing, but upon perusing the page above, and some of the other content on this site, I find myself feeling tricked into visiting by tricky wording. A 3-year-old who insists on doing his own shopping and choosing his own food, is definitely NOT cute. He has a seriously over inflated sense of self importance, that his parents are reinforcing. It won’t be too long before THE CHILD starts running the household! His parents are making serious mistake by catering to his demanding behavior. His father should be the first to set strong rules. The parents should be the ONLY ones who decide what is purchase in the grocery market, and what is out on the table. Allow a child to decide what goes in the pantry, and you’re going to find yourself chowing down on cookies, cakes, candies, chips, pretzels, lunch meat sandwiches, French fries, greasy burgers, hot dogs and pizza. You’ll wash it all down with sugary soda! Don’t expect to find a bowl of broccoli, Brussell sprouts, or spinach on the dinner table. Nor will there ever be lean roast beef, potatoes, rice, or noodles. Kraft Macaroni and cheese, maybe, or perhaps an occasional spaghetti dinner, but don’t expect any of the stuff that adults often hanker for, like Lobster, Shrimp, Crab, green veggies, or tuna casserole. Fruit juice and white milk will definitely be off the menu. Chocolate milk, maybe. I raised two daughters to adulthood and avoided a lot of health problems by serving balanced meals. Observing the current trend in this country, to place children on pedestals, and give them nearly god-like status, fills me with dread, and great fear for future generations. Our young people are already dangerously misguided, and doted on by parents afraid to say no, when an 8 year old demands an expensive IPhone, and then racks up a $1000.00 phone bill! Parents no longer want to step in when their teens sit up all night texting, because they fear they will lose the confrontation and the “love” of a child, who already views his or her parents as being in-the-way, clueless, and over-protective. Our media, every day tells our young people that they are more intelligent, more capable, and can handle ANY situation or problem far better than anyone over 30. We see young adolescents kissing and dating while sound tracks deliver ooohs and awwws, and give the message that this behavior is oh, so cute! Truth is, this sort of behavior is not cute, is is sick, and unnatural. A mentally healthy, well adjusted adolescent would view members of the opposite sex as dumb, and holding hands or kissing as yucky, or gross! But, I’m off topic, here. I’ll end by saying the story was neither funny nor cute. A 3 year old should NEVER be permitted to make his own shopping decisions. And a parent should NEVER give a child this much freedom.
GJ: I don?t really agree with you. I think that it is a great thing that he knows what he wants to eat. It should definitely go too far so that the child starts demanding chocolate for dinner, but if the child and parent shop together and talk about what food is good and what not is then I see no problem in it. Another thing I thought about is that every item you wrote in your post that you think is good food is really nasty according to me. Broccoli tastes aweful and I dont really like lobster either… Wich just proves that we have different tastes. I do like veggies like cucumber, tomatoes, sallad and carrots. When they are fresh and not cooked! I really hate cooked veggies. Also, pasta and potatoes is not really good food as they dont have a lot of nutrition.
The bottom line is that if the child can be part of deciding the foods to eat it will be much more willing to eat it. Have a nice day!
I love it! I know a lot of men including my husband that are lost in the grocery store. He has no concept of what is needed to cook a meal. Its always left up to me to decide “what’s for dinner?” Plus, some kids are a lot smarter than we think. I don’t have kids myself yet, but I am very active in my nieces and nephews lives. I have learned that they love to feel included instead of ignored. They appreciate and understand being treated with respect. My nephews love helping me cook! They love having input on the days itinerary and they enjoy having structure. My parents used to give us say on where to go and what to do on our leisure time and we learned a lot about decision making in the process. Anyhow, to each his own. We don’t live in the 50’s anymore. Lol.
Anyhow, I was actually going to suggest that if your store had self checkout that you allow your son to help you. If not, perhaps you could have him help you place all the items on the counter and if you explained the process he’d be more at peace with the process in the future. Either way, props for being involved in your kids lives. Good luck!
Thanks for the comment and suggestions. I do use the self checkout sometimes. He loves to press buttons and usually sneaks behind a closed register and touched everything he can reach. The cashiers love us I’m sure.
Thank you so much for this artlice, it saved me time!
Thanks again for your reply. I don’t know much what my config file means, but the thing is that it already works as i posted earlier. What i thought was that apache isn’t working because of the proxy config.