i‘m not going to lie to you, 10 minutes before these photos i was trying to negotiate my daughter into going to the playroom at the grocery store because, yeah obvious, but when you’re child answers “mom, i hate to say it but i don’t like kids’ activities” it’s hard to keep pushing. {or is it?}

so i tried one old tactic – bribing her to stay in the cart with a sucker – and then a new one: turning the trip into an unschooling exercise. so this is not anything new. groceries and markets have long been places of learning and exploration for little ones. i’m not tooting my horn about that, i’m simply here to tell you it worked. she stayed by me, she helped and she only asked for about 50 additional items which is a sharp decrease from her normal 200.

background info: darla will tell me to go eff myself if i try to encourage her to do something because it will make her a “good girl” but she’ll be right there if i am framing it as a need for a helper. {i’m thankful she’s given me these insights into how she would like to be raised along the way.} as my helper today she read all the PLU numbers to me while i wrote them on our reusable containers in the bulk section. she helped me locate items, dish them out into containers and we discussed how much each thing would cost per pound. in general we took a more in-depth look at our food items, discussing how they smelled and looked and felt. this directly resulted in us purchasing some peaches that darla rubbed against her face. can you blame her? cause, gawd, peaches feel so good!

i think her favorite learning point was the ginger root bin. she had picked out some crystalized ginger in the bulk section earlier, so it was a nice dot-connector to find and examine it in the raw.

i’m thankful for these new unschooling outlooks to outings. this plan might just keep me more calm + collected.

praying that i keep up the practice.