A surprisingly enjoyable shopping experience!

I am not usually one to take all 4 of my kids shopping by myself, with no restraints (i.e. pram or trolley) but on the way back from taking my dad and sister to the airport the other day, there were a couple of shops I really wanted to 'pop' into!

I don't usually have much patience or tolerance for shopping with kids, but today I was in a rather relaxed mood, and found it much more easier to turn a blind eye and ear to their requests - i.e.

I need to go to the toilet,

I'm hungry,

Come and look at this Mummy!

I just strolled through the store, happy for them to wander along behind me, browsing at this and that. I dragged them all into the change room and they helped me decide which top and skirt to buy.

Normally I am a pretty strict about them keeping right by my side and about touching things, but today, I was way more relaxed, and the store was not very busy - I was actually enjoying myself!

After the clothes shop I just had to go to one more shop - the shoe shop! It's more like a warehouse really, shoes and boxes everywhere! I was surprisingly still very relaxed in this shop, I was on a mission to buy shoes!

As it turned out, this shopping trip was a lot of fun for all of us, my 2 year old daughter stirred up a bit of attention trying on all sorts of ladies shoes.

At first I stopped her, but after a while I realised she was just copying me and all the other ladies in the store who were trying on shoes!

So many ladies were smiling at her and commented on how cute she was. She chose a shoe from the shelf, put it on, walked up and down and then put it back roughly where she found it!

I realised after that if I had been really strict and bossy and made her stop trying on the shoes, we would have missed out on making so many of the ladies around us smile and enjoy watching her.

I know that a lot of this surprisingly enjoyable trip had to do with my attitude!

I wasn't being neglectful, and my children certainly were not out of control, I was just way more relaxed and made the effort to enjoy my children and allow them to enjoy the experience too!