Shopping with Mama

Claire and I had to run errands in town yesterday, and we honestly had a lot of fun.  It's hard to believe that a couple of months ago, I dreaded going anywhere with her in the car because she would scream the entire time.

Our first stop was at Sam's Club and I got her a soft pretzel for a snack, which was a big deal because her brothers weren't there so she didn't have to share.  Of course, she only ate about 3 bites, but still . . . there was no sharing involved so she was happy.

From there, we went to Walmart.  In general, I avoid Walmart, but it's the easiest place to make purchases at for camp.  I'd been warned by some shoppers at Sam's Club that the air conditioning was out, and it was, but the temperatures weren't as bad as I'd anticipated.

We had a rather long list and Claire was relatively patient while we searched for everything.  She was doing a lot of yelling, so we talked quite a bit about indoor and outdoor voices, but she was pretty set on using her outside voice for everything.

We filled our cart and got in line at check out.  As we waited, I noticed her staring at the back of woman ahead of us.  I looked up at the woman and then looked back at Claire and could just see the wheels turning.  Everything at that point seemed to be moving in slow motion.  Before I could distract her, she laughed and said (in an outside voice, of course), "HA! HA!  I SEE YOUR UNDIES!"  It was in the exact same tone and with the same level of joy in which she hears her brothers tease each other.  Perfect.

Fortunately, the women in front of us had a good sense of humor.  She pulled down her shirt a little in the back and we all laughed . . . my face a little more red than the others.

We had two separate orders on the belt.  I paid for them both, loaded them into the cart and we started toward the exit.  Claire noticed that the large bags of bird seed and the gallon of milk weren't in shopping bags and said (again, in an outside voice), "WE DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS STUFF!"

I assured her that we did and pointed to the receipts that I had let her hold . . . but she's 2 1/2, so if it's not in a bag, it's not paid for.  She continued to yell, "WE DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS STUFF!  WE DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS STUFF!" while I waved the receipts and laughed nervously as bypassers stared, wondering who was telling the truth.  We approached the exit and Claire got very serious and wide-eyed and looked at the greeter and whispered, "WE DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS STUFF!"  He just laughed as I nervously waved my receipts, assuring him that we'd paid for everything in my cart.

I can laugh about it now.  Actually, I was laughing all the way out to the car.  It was mildly embarrassing, and very amusing.  I'll take this kind of thing over screaming and fits any day!