I am wife: It should be reasonable.
I am mother: It should be done without a fight.
When my 2 boys were small, fabric stores were like vaccines and room cleaning to them.... Evil. Painful. Worse than torture. But I finally stumbled upon the perfect compromise.
We lived a good distance from shopping and would bundle the errands and make a day of it. As we cycling through our goals for the day, I would casually mention that I needed to stop at the fabric store. During the inevitable eye rolling and loud and dramatic groans from them, I would assure them that it wouldn't be that bad. Then, for some unknown reason (that only a mother and quilter would understand), we would always manage to need something in the area of a toy section in a store or 2.
Ok, so here is the carrot. Once they found something in the toy section that attracted them like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory on crack, I would casually mention, "Guys, you know the deal. However long you want to spend looking at these things, I get equal time in the fabric store with NO WHINING."
Granted, the first time, I don't think they absorbed what my words meant but I was generous with the time allotments, giving them more than I got. We gotta make sure the treatment is better than the illness, right?
Eventually, I got it turned around so that we went to the fabric store before the toy section, advising that I timed until the first whine and they would get that much time with their mecca of glassy eyed pleasure: the toy section of a store. Everyone was happy and they kept each other in line. And I had fabric to envision and mentally stroke in my head while they were filling up on dreams of owning every single toy in the store.
As the years progressed, sometimes they asked for time allotments at other places... bike shops or what have you. But it always worked... at least for me.
Do you suppose there is a Noble Peace Prize for something like this???
May there be a workable solution to every problem in your day.
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