I'm toasting a blueberry bagel that I had to buy when my almost 2 year old son bit through the plastic and into a bagel at a local restaurant. I looked away for 10 seconds to answer my SIL's question and, next thing I knew, my 4 year old nephew was trying to pry my son's jaws from a bag of day old bagels. The "best" part is that my hubby and I discovered we both left our wallets at home and had to borrow $5 from my FIL to pay for the bitten dozen. At least we like blueberry bagels.
This same kid, almost a year ago, managed to tear the cover on an Ebony magazine because I miscalculated the distance in the Target checkout. The Target guy saw what happened, saw that I immediately put it into my pile of stuff to buy, saw my ghostly pale complexion and told me with a kind smile that they would just take care of it, unless I REALLY wanted to buy it. I was torn because I was using it as an example to my three year old about responsibility, but quickly changed it to an example of kindness and gratitude instead.
So, what unexpected purchases have you ended up with because of your kids (or yourself)?
Thanks for the laughs ladies! I'm sure many of you can imagine the look on the girl's face when I explained why I was asking for her for another plastic bag for the bagels. She thought I was joking until I showed her the perfect little bite directly beneath the hole in the plastic!
I do have to say that I'm saddened, but not surprised by some of the examples of damage done and ignored. I am really sad about the one response basically saying that since a store can't make you pay for something you've damaged, my attitude should be "too bad, so sad for you". I will proudly take responsibility for my actions and my children's actions (until their old enough to take responsibility for themselves). Just because they can't legally make me pay doesn't change the fact that I am morally responsible. Too often in our society today, people hide their mistakes, refuse to take responsibility unless legally forced to and, in general, have a "not my problem" attitude even when something is their fault. We have to be the change we want to see in the world, so I teach my children to apologize even if it's an accident, to confess to wrongdoings, to face the consequences for their mistakes and to treat other's possessions with care.
You should have heard the big sister lecture my three year old delivered to her little brother in the restaurant: "We don't bite bagels that aren't ours! That's not nice, Caybib." :-) So cute!
Bruised and battered bananas. And torn and/or smushed food boxes. My fault for putting a two year old in the grocery area of the shopping cart.
Last week I was buying Balsamic vinaigrette and somehow it flew off the belt and shattered. Vinaigrette and glass all over the floor. I knew I wouldn't have to pay for it and they would just call it a loss but I still felt like they should have allowed me to clean it up.
Nothing yet, but there is one store that I refuse to let my son go into.
It's called 'Things Remembered' and pretty much everything within this store is breakable. So my 2 year old gets to sit with daddy out in the hallway (They are usually only found in malls) while I look around. Everything there is so darn expensive!
When my older girls were little, I took them to a craft thing at Michaels. After they made their crafts, I wanted to pick up some markers. Well, one of my girls found the sketch books and one of those sample paint markers on the shelves opposite where I was looking. She started drawing in the book. She said she thought she could since they left the markers out (the books were right below them). Darn thing cost $23. I was so glad I remembered my coupon from the paper.
My son's pretty good about not breaking things while we're shopping.
But we had a close call.
One time we were at the super market (he was about 1.5 yrs old) and I had him sitting in the seat of the cart and my basket was about half filled with food.
I had carefully placed the eggs so they wouldn't be crushed by anything else but they were on top of other things and with in reaching distance of my son.
While I was looking for a can of tomato sauce (I was right next to him!) my son opened the carton of eggs and very thoughtfully and gently placed them around other things in the cart - the whole dozen!
I turned my head and saw him so happy to be 'helping' me - my jaw just dropped as I thought about the mess that might happen.
I handed him something else to play with and I carefully searched in the cart and found every egg (unbroken - whew!) and put them back into the carton.
My 2 year old has opened candy bars several times by using her go-go-gadget arms to reach them while we are in line to check out. I always buy the candy bars, but I don't let her eat them
My children have eaten fruit from the store before I could stop them, so I make them show the core of the apple or pear or the peach pit to the cashier and then ask the cashier to weigh and extra one for us. The cost comes out of the girls own money, whether it be allowance or gift money. Each my girls has done it exactly once. They now know that I won't tolerate "sampling" at stores because it's stealing. I expect to pay for it before they eat it.
I do abide by the "if my child breaks it, I'll buy it" rule unless the manager in the store is kind enough to waive it, but I won't ask them to do that. And again, the broken item we just bought comes out of my childrens' own money. They now make sure that they don't break things in stores or anywhere else because it's not so nice to own brand new broken things that no one can use that you can't even exchange for an unbroken counterpart.
My mom has a mirror hanging on her wall that she has had for about 31 years.
She took me to the store and there was a mirror propped up and as my 4 year old feet walked by I accidently kicked it. She had to buy it.
She has a little "spruce" of flowers on the bottom right corner to cover up the crack in the mirror and she has kept that mirror all these years.
L.
we bought an 84 Mustang, piece of sh*t....all due to excessive testosterone floating thru the air. Seriously, you could see it floating. :)
My older son was 15, my husband is a Ford freak, & we ended up buying the danged car. The owner started that baby up & my $$$ disappeared as the car rumbled in front of us. In the end, it was a blast to own & drive. My son used to call my Mom & say, "Mom's acting up again. She's doggin' my car. Will you please tell her to stop?".....LOL all the way! After the initial repairs, it was a good 1st car. :)
My younger son's 1st car purchase....hmmm, pretty much went the same way. A 92 Camaro, with glass t-tops. The testosterone was floating that day, too....& my $$$, once again, floated away with the exhaust. (sigh)
At least our 1st car experiences are over.....!!
I don't recall her ever breaking anything or eating anything in the store. I do recall once when we were still working on potty trainig, she had an accident, and I had forgotten to bring spare clothes with me. So I grabbed a six-pack of panties and a pair of sweatpants, took her in the bathroom and put them on her, and took the tags and the rest of the open package to the checkout and paid for them.
We were buying napkin rings at bed bath and beyond off a wedding registry and thought they were wooden. Hubby dropped one and turned out they were ceramic made to look wooden. I took the biggest pieces to the register to pay for that one plus the others, and they told me I didn't have to pay since they have budget for that sort of thing. It was an inexpensive item, but it was nice of them.
We ended up with a broken figurine. My daughter was about 7 years old and we were in a card shop. She knows not to touch things, but she picked up a figurine anyway. Now, I *sort* of blame the lady behind the counter who YELLED at her to put it down. When she yelled, my daughter jumped and dropped the figurine. I'm pretty sure if the lady had talked in a calm voice or not said anything my daughter would have put it down without a problem.
I was mad at both my daughter and the lady. The lady told me I would have to pay for it, and I said "I'll be happy to pay, but I think if you had not yelled and scared my daughter she would not have dropped the figurine."
The lady agreed to let me buy it for 1/2 off and thank goodness it wasn't a very expensive thing!
I was going to make my daughter pay for it, but she was so upset about it that I figured it was a lesson learned so I didn't.
I was going to glue the figurine back together, but it was just a reminder to us all of the incident so I just threw it away! It made a nice little smashing sound when it hit the bottom of the trash can :)
We've never had this, even once, I don't know why.
When my son was your son's age, though, I had the hardest time teaching him not to scramble into other people's yards and start picking their flowers, eating leaves off their bushes -- who knows what he had planned. I had this line "Yards are just for the people who live there; the park is for everyone," but it didn't compute.
I haven't yet, but I'm pretty sure my one year old, if he is ever let loose in a store will cost me a fortune. He's not so much destructive as he is inquisitive.
I'm an insurance agent in AZ. Technically, the store cannot force you to buy something, even if they hang a thousand signs that say, "you break it, you buy it". That's why they have insurance. So if it happens again, just take it to a clerk and say, "oopsie, suzie bit into your bagels, sorry". That's it. My kids are older and I don't think I've ever bought anything but my kids were always in the basket until they were old enough to behave. Good luck.
We were redecorating our living room when my oldest was only 2 yrs old. The furniture store had an on staff interior decorator who helped with our selections in the store and when the furniture was delivered she had added in all sorts of accessories, including some large vases. She wanted us to just "see" how they worked in the room before we purchased, one of the vases lasted about 2 hours on our brick fireplace hearth before it was knocked over! We didn't have to pay, she said "oops, that must've happened in transit!"
Yes, we have purchased more furniture at this store and we did end up buying some of the extras she sent along! Good business practice if you don't have too many transit incidents!
Never happened to us. Fortunately! Sometimes I do let DD pick out something special at the store and she knows that she can't play with, eat, or draw on it until it is paid for. We have dropped nickles in the candy kiosk and bought a few pieces like that. I have also rushed through the store and grabbed a pair of pants and pack of undies to make a quick change in the bathroom after a potty accident ( quickly paid for them first). I think I would probably offer to pay for it, too (depending on what it is, and that I'm sure WE were the ones to break it). I have opened a pack of tissues when, during a very snotty sneezing fit, I realized that I had no tissues in my purse! I did take the open box to the register and pay for it with my other stuff.
None, because honestly while yes my kid(s) have grabbed an apple or two that's been the only thing and our local grocery doesn't see that as a loss of profit seeing as they throw away more fruit than one apple. My children have never broken anything in stores and neither have I. I've been on both sides of the checkout counter and while it is not customary for patrons to pay for broken items it is a pain to have to write things off just the same. I always make it a point to not have my children near enough to things to be able to break them or for me to have pay for something I did not want.
Well at least once, my son, while grocery shopping... thought he would help me choose some produce. Nectarines. And the "display" is like a fruit pyramid. Grab the wrong one and it can all come toppling down like an avalanche.
Yah, so well, my son grabbed the wrong one and the whole fruit pyramid came toppling down!
O.M.G.!
He was embarrassed. Good thing the produce guy in the aisle, just smiled and said "Its okay, I know, it happens more than you think..."
Good thing, I didn't have to buy the entire inventory that fell to the ground.
Luckily nothing but my son broke a jar of spaghetti sauce at Target once and it was the most expensive one, my daughter broke a snow globe once at Target too.
I did buy some cheese once because my kid threw it in the cart without me knowing.
Wow...... it has been a while... but I totally understand what you mean about kids eating THROUGH the packages!
One of my kids grabbed the package of bologna out of the cart and bit through the plastic......
Others have grabbed candy from the displays at the check-outs.....
And, of course, if I parked too close to the shelves, there was no telling WHAT they added to the cart!
Have fun!
I was going to buy it anyway, but we picked up a snack pack from the deli section of the grocery store - cubes of cheese and grapes, and a box of crackers. The kids like having "toothpick" lunches sometimes (anything you can eat using a toothpick), so this was perfect. Until the kids started arguing about who was going to carry it, and it popped open - and cheese and grapes flew all over the place. I couldn't move the cart, for fear of smashing cheese, and I wasn't going to leave the kids there alone, so there I was, calling for help, until another customer went and found someone with a broom. We bought the empty container, and ended up having just the crackers for lunch. And my purse had been hanging from the handle of the shopping cart - open - the best part of the whole thing was cleaning the cheese and grapes out of my purse later that evening.
Otherwise, we've bought greeting cards that were crumpled and a small ceramic magnet - which I asked the store to throw away, since it was pretty ugly before it was dropped and broken. There was also an incident with a value-sized jar of applesauce, but an employee told me that since there was shattered glass all over the place, not to bother wading through the mess to get one with a bar code so I could pay for it.
I can't think of anything I bought from the "break it, you buy it" category (more often it was ruined after it got home), but my heart sank when I heard a father in Target tell his child to "put that back" and then CRASH. It was a ceramic piggy bank. Kids...
My son opened a candy bar before. I was so scared. All we could do was run because I couldn't afford to buy it.
My two year old tore the page out a curious george book from the library, but I take the blame because I allowed a 2 year old to have a library book alone in her crib at nap time. I haven't returned it yet. I'm hoping they will just overlook it when I do.
