mp3 player... Sunday Feb 19

Saturday, we took the kids shopping to Walmart.  I know, Walmart on a Saturday is the stupidest thing you have heard all week.  But, I needed to look for sneakers for Gretchen so I was dragging Lew along for the fun of the twins in Walmart.  He doesn't get the full shopping experience with them enough.  And, believeyoume... they did not disappoint me!  He got the full Twins In Walmart (or other department store) experience this afternoon. 

No princess shoes in her size.  We did however, find her some red shoes to wear to school on spirit days.  They are not what I was looking for, but she kept seeing red glittery shoes and wanting them.  So, at least this pair had a rubber bottom, not slippery dress-shoe-like bottoms.  Then, they had water shoes on sale.  So, I picked up a pair for each kid.  And, Gretchen found a black low-top-Converse style looking sneaker on clearance for $3.  Cool.   

By the time we did the groceries and shoes and headed to sporting goods to find tennis balls, Carl was ridiculous.  I ended up taking the kids out to the car while Lew finished up shopping.  Once we got to the car and put on some Rush music, he calmed right down.  So, this got me wondering about his sensory overload.  Maybe the reason this 6 year old cannot walk calmly near a cart for any longer than .008 second has something to do with the store itself.  I know that today was zooy, but generally, when I take them during the week, it is usually much less crowded.  So, we cannot fully blame the hoards of impolite shoppers.  But, maybe the lighting, size, number of smells, etc is a bit too much.  (Therapists will be proud of me for this hypothesis.)  The music really seemed to zone him right out almost.  Of course, we were back in the van so that may have been enough to stabilize his senses.  But, we had already been talking about getting them their own little music players for long car rides.  I figured this would be a good time to move on that and test it out when shopping, too.  You see gazillions of kids playing hand held video games in stores to keep them distracted, why not a little music to soothe my savage beast?

Turns out, Big Lots had a little player on sale for President's Weekend for $14.  We went and not only did they have them, but they had pink and blue ones.  Everyone was happy.  Lew put Rush and some Phineas & Ferb songs on Carl's right away and he put Rush and Disney Princess songs on Gretchen's. 

We have yet to test them out in an actual store.  We were going to do Walmart yesterday (Saturday again, remember, I am writing these and putting old dates on them this week) but we ran out of time due to other errands and then need for a nap in the afternoon.

So, I will let you know how it works out.  They know the rules already.  You can listen to your music, but you have to walk by the cart with me.  You don't get to have the music and still run up and down the aisles in people's way.  We'll see......