Amazing plastic shopping carts

If you are not a parent of a toddler, I wonder if you could appreciate those big, plastic, and nearly always grubby car-transformed shopping carts at Fred Meyer. I used to think they were hidious. Now that I have a toddler that hates sitting in a traditional shopping cart, I love them. While I haven't started shopping at Fred Meyer solely on the fact that they have these amazing shopping carts (yet!), I surely do appreciate them when I am there (and I plan to desperately beg the stores I regularly shop at to get some as well).

What was once an arduous trip to the store with multiple meltdowns and unwanted games of chase down the aisles, is now an Indy 500 car race on a track filled with canned goods, fresh fruits and tortilla chips. My kid will sit in one of those cars the entire time, completely entertained by her driving skills, the seat belt she can buckle herself and the door to the left (sometimes held together with duct tape - Rays Food Place). In fact, trying to get her out of the darned thing at the end of the shopping trip can sometimes lead to a meltdown itself, but at least my shopping is done. I can handle a tantrum in the car.

 So here we were in the Freddie's shopping center after a trip to the ice cream shop. We eyed a nearby "racecar" and put Bailes in it as we enjoyed our ice cream. Rather than having to repeatedly ask her to stay in her chair at the table, she happily ate her ice cream and drove around Bailey World in her little red car, conveniently parked right next to Mommy and Daddy at the table. It was a nice moment. And all it would take was a few wet wipes to clean up the melted ice cream and grub from the cart.

Eventually, she had a meltdown, in between Fred Meyer and Goodwill, but it had more to do with naptime than any shopping cart. That's another story for another day.