Cathy in the Wright

My Morning

Some days I think of things that are innately horrible ideas, and yet I go ahead and do them anyway. This morning I took The Governor for a short trip through Target. It was going to be a long trip, but we had to cut and bail in the Ziplock baggie aisle because The Gov was going into meltdown mode.

We made it through the check-out line without any disruptions, and I even got him buckled into his car seat with minimal struggles. So the part of my brain that ignores and overrules saner areas of the grey jelly put forth the suggestion: That wasn’t so bad. Why not a quick trip through the grocery store?

Intelligence and common sense, working together for the greater good protested. No! No way! You’re pushing your luck.

It’ll be a quick trip. I just need a few things for dinner.

Fool! He’s deceiving you. You’ll regret it by the dairy aisle.

Naw. We can do this. I’ll buy a treat for the car ride home and use it as behavior insurance.

Twenty bucks says he forfeit his claim to it within the first ten minutes. But buy the treat anyway. You’re not going to listen to us.

I didn’t. I should have.

The Gov and I got into the store and spent several minutes haggling over which cart to take. We settled on the model with the car in front, but then had to battle over whether or not he could ride on the top of the cab. He lost that fight, and several other skirmishes. I won’t bore you with the aisle by aisle conflicts, but suffice it to say that by the time we were paying, he had gone nuclear.

He was jumping up and down in the back of the cart screaming, “I HATE this cart! I call this cart an IDIOT cart! You are a BAD mom! I am VERY MAD right now!”

I paid, I apologized, I bagged, I threw him over my shoulder fireman-style and we left. He continued screaming all the way across the parking lot, lambasting me as an unqualified parent.

When he ran out of breath, I reminded him, “It’s a good thing I AM your mom. Anyone else would have beaten you severely by now.”

His comeback: scream some more. He wore himself out half way home and started to fall asleep in the car. Since I didn’t want him napping until we got home, I had to do something drastic to keep him awake. I pulled over, rummaged through the groceries, found his treat, and started eating it in front of him. I nibbled that doughnut for eight miles. And he wailed every inch of the way.

When we walked in the door, he took off his shoes and made a beeline for my bed. He was asleep within seconds.

I finished putting the groceries away, and now I’m thinking a cold beer might be just the thing to wash down that doughnut.

Have a great weekend.

Posted by Cathy at May 13, 2005 01:10 PM