Shopping with kids should be seen as an Olympic sport. Especially when you are doing the food shopping. Oh and in a shop where kids touch expensive things! Maybe everywhere, but I just had this realisation yesterday after doing a shop at Woolworths.

Oh what an afternoon!!

Things that the kids did while at the shop:

• Rearranged some of the shelves for products (very kind but yet annoying)
• Ran into each other and then bumped off the shelves, and of course fell down to fall at the feet of another customer with her trolley.
• Got into hysterical giggle fit and would not stand still or listen to me at all!
• I must say kids don’t need to be having a giggle fit or even a hysterical giggle fit to ignore me.
• One child was helpful to a point. She helped me get many fruit and veg. She of course was wearing her sparkly crown to the shops. While she got mushrooms and put them in the brown paper bag a lady commented, “Oh look it’s the Queen of Mushrooms!” I thought it was nice and she smiled and so did my little girl. Here is where the help ends.
• Steering the shopping trolley while not wanting help. Yelling at me to not help them. I had to help as they were going to bump into things, people and products. A disaster all round.

So as you can see my trip to the shops yesterday was a trial and exhausting. I did not start off with a headache but ended up with a massive one.

As stated shopping with kids should be considered an Olympic Sport. What would you have to do to get a medal you ask?

To get a gold medal, this is what you need to do:

You need to be at the supermarket with 2 very hungry and naughty kids. You are tasked with getting a big shop for a family of 4 and staying sane throughout the process.  (All athletes otherwise known as parents and carers, are tasked with the same challenge for all medal levels)

Making sure that kids listen to your instructions, you remain calm and don’t raise your voice ever during this marathon challenge.

This is not an easy task, you will also have to keep a smile on your face throughout this whole experience. If you fail with any of this criteria the gold medal is lost forever, to never be in your grasp.  So to achieve a gold medal you are beyond human.

To get a silver medal, this is what you need to do:

Things that would make you get a silver would be, tantrum by kid accompanied by screams and tears. You yelling or not dealing with it well would make sure your award would be silver.

If there is more than one incident you would be a bronze medal winner.

To get a bronze medal, this is what you need to do:

If you have 2 or more meltdowns, from you or the children. You lose your cool, get angry and just get annoyed. This would also mean that you have lost the smile on your face and wish to get home as soon as possible, the kids bedtime cannot come soon enough! As you might have guessed winners of this category are counting down the hours till they can have the wine or other alcoholic drink to ease their nerves.

I must say that I was in the bronze medal category yesterday as I did lose it a bit and of course needed some nice red wine at dinner to make me feel a little better.

The elusive gold medal

ISF (International Sporting Federation) of Shopping with Kids is wanting to demonstrate to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that this is a genuine sport and should be included in the next Olympic Games. What do you think? Do you believe an athlete could manage to win a gold medal under the pressure from naughty unruly kids?

It would be great to watch if it was a reality, I would love to see the breakdown from the athletes. “He thought that he could do it but the kids broke him!” says the sports commentator. “She was in there with a chance, but the kids are running rings around her”, says the other sports commentator.

How do you fare at the shops when you have the kids with you? Do you feel like it is like an Olympic Sport? Send in your comments.