Someone once asked me how much time I give myself for getting out the door with all of the kids. I laughed and said, “The same 5 minutes that I have always given myself!”. Unfortunately, that is the case, sometimes I get it right and give us all enough time to calmly get out the door, but most of the time it is the same old five minutes and we are all running around like crazy chickens. When will I ever learn???
With that exception, I am usually pretty good about outings with the kids. I love to go places with them and I don’t want to miss out on anything just because we have lots of kids. So, several years ago, I put our first compensatory action into play. My biggest concern with multiple children was that one would get away. That would be sooo bad. So, I thought and thought…then I remembered what the daycares do (no comments please). They have walking ropes, those long ropes with knots that the kids hold on to. That was it! I was making ours lickety split. As you can probably guess, it morphed into Gripsterz over time and is now extremely functional for our family (and many others!). Having Grippy is definitely the main thing that allows me to get out with the kids. Without it…wouldn’t be pretty!
Some of the other techniques I employ are distraction, occupation, and involvement – and…sometimes lollipops! I try to bring toys or other relevant devices that relate to where we are going. If we are going to the Dr.’s office, we take baby dolls and our medical kits. For flights (yes we have flown often with the kids!) I take lots of lap things to do – things that are not loud or annoying. While we are out, I typically slow down and notice what around us will relate to the kids. If we are at a museum and the sights are too much for the kids, I may take a little time to find something for them to do like “act like the statue” they are seeing, or make a face like the painting or … go up and down the escalator a hundred times!
And my last trick is the lollipop…it has saved me many times! A lollipop will keep a reaching, touching hand occupied (while the other hand is holding on to Grippy!) and it will keep a noisy mouth quiet. It calms the pains and squeals of hunger and has dried up many a tear. And it is always a great treat for good behavior, either to induce it or to reward it.
Back to Gripsterz for a minute, you may be thinking “Oh, my child won’t hold on to that, he’ll just let go and run”. Well, I have one of those children too. It took 7, but we finally got a runner. The first time I gave him that cute little monkey, he just dropped him and went on his merry way… away from me. That is when I added the wrist strap. For him, it took a little while with the wrist strap for him to understand what he was supposed to do with that cute little monkey. Now, he fights the others to hold on to his monkey (my older children still try to hold on to it!) and he rarely lets it go. Sometimes he gets overly tempted by something magically wonderful, and I hear, see or feel him let go. But he usually loves to have the security of being close to me and still being able to explore.
Note: This picture was taken from Heur et malheur (fortune good and bad), by E. d’Erwin, illustrated by H. Castelli, Paris 1877. Image used courtesy of oldbookillustrations.com.
