Other families do it

So we decided to take a family trip to the mall today so Michael could get some jeans. I'm not sure why we thought this would be a fun outting. I don't think this will be fun for quite some time. Max certainly didn't think watching daddy tryinig on pants was very entertaining and after about 30 minutes he didn't care that if he was a good boy we could play at the indoor park at the mall. I had gone thru my bag of tricks (goldfish, matchbox cars, and the magna doodle). It also doesn't help that Michael is super picky about his jeans and in between sizes so we kept having to go back and look for more. Finally Michael bought some jeans which he will probably return next week, and I grabbed a couple of things for the kids we headed to the food court. Max played a little bit in the playground, while Lila cried. Next we decided to grab something to eat b/c we thought that would be easier than eating at home. What were we thinking? Lila needed to be held or she cried. Max dropped a french fry on the floor and when we threw it away he was hysterical. He really wanted that fry and didn't understand why we couldn't eat it. Sometimes we let him eat food that dropped on the floor at home, but certainly not at the mall. He just doesn't understand the 5 second rule. I looked around and there were many other families at the mall with their kids who definitely didn't look as stressed as we were. So how do they do it? So from now on, when we need to go to the mall the kids will need to stay at home.