Reasons to Either Love or Hate Shopping with Children

1. Snacks. You must have snacks for the children, which means you can have a snack for yourself. This is good if you're hungry as I was today but not so good if you accidentally eat half a bag of strawberry yogurt covered raisins (or "pink yummies," as Melynie calls them) that you bought at Aldi 5 minutes ago.

2. Company. At least you're not the lonely shopper, wandering aimlessly, nobody to talk to. But on the other hand, you have someone to talk to you. "Mom, what's for Gain?" "Mom, what's for Purex?" (repeat for every brand of detergent you can think of and that might give you an idea). Even though you eventually tell them, "Everything here is for washing clothes. EVERYTHING." They'll still need to ask.

3. Efficiency. Shopping with children can make you more efficient. When I shop alone I wander, looking at everything in the store until David calls the police to search for me. Not that way with kids. With kids you leave the store before you have everything you needed because said children were laying on top of the shelves, which means you will have to go back again another day, which I guess isn't really efficient after all.

4. Attention. If you take your kids with you to the store people will look at you. When you shop alone they might not. Not sure if you want them looking at you, though, when you threaten in that end-of-my-rope voice to leave the children at the store if they don't stop hiding in the racks of clothes.

5. Excitement. If you shop with children you won't be bored. Your heart will be racing at some point or another on your shopping trip. Like when you can't find your child for 5 solid minutes even though you're yelling his name and he can hear you from the rack of clothes he's hiding inside. Maybe boredom's not such a bad thing.

6. Preparedness. If you shop with children you will have something for almost any catastrophe that might arise. Like when your child dumps soft scrub with bleach on himself in the shopping cart. But then if you shop with children you MUST be prepared for all sorts of catastrophes, so gone is the cute handbag. Enter the mommy bag. Useful. Big. NOT cute.

Then you'll get home and find out your husband came home from work early. If you had left an hour later you could have been shopping alone. ALONE!