{shopping with babies}

Here is what I have concluded after spending three days alone with Finola....
(the boy was with the grandparents, while hubby was out of town on business)

Girls are easier to shop with than boys.   Males simply must be born with an "I hate shopping" gene.  I remember trying to take Cormac to Ikea when he was about a month old.  They are really supposed to be easy at that point.  Really portable.  Fall asleep anywhere.  Love the car.  Yeah, none of that was true.  We got there and I tried to do a return and lets just say I ended up in tears, with a screaming baby.  Then as I tried to pull myself together and walk through the showroom, I had to stop about five times and try to shove a bottle in his mouth because he just wouldn't stop fussing/crying and, of course, hated the pacifier.

Two years later I take Finola to Ikea.  She is quiet the entire car ride and I am able to sing along to my iPod tunes with wild abandon.  We get to Ikea and I am able to get through doing a return and the entire showroom with her in the stroller and not a peep.  She just stared wide-eyed at everything.

We got halfway through the marketplace (if you have never shopped at Ikea you should know that both the showroom and the marketplace - two different levels - can take quite a while to get through) when she started to fuss, at which point I popped her in the Baby Bjorn front carrier.

Rest of the shopping visit, including making a purchase and lugging it out to the car, was a breeze.

I didn't shed one tear.  

 I am hoping this love of shopping continues.  I see much more of it in our future.  Girls gotta shop.

g