Wal-mart II
Rebecca decided that today should be the day Max gets a new bike.
My thought is that it’s fall and he doesn’t have that long to ride it, and next spring he will have grown – (because she keeps feeding him even though I tell her to cut that out) but what the heck, let’s go get it anyway.
Yesterday Lillie broke her Binkie string, so we have to go get a new one of those.
Ella’s Smurfette Halloween costume is too small, so we need go find one in the right size.
Wal-mart will probably be the cheapest option, so let’s go there!
Apparently my lovely wife doesn’t read her own blog. She wrote a hilarious column on how painful shopping at Wal-mart with kids can be.
The pain from that trip has faded from her memory, so off we go.
Plus, Lillie and Ella didn’t let her sleep last night, so she’s not in the most resourceful state to begin with.
This should be fun.
We get to Wal-Mart and the fun begins.
Max wants to look at the bike’s first, Ella wants to look at more Barbie’s (even though that’s not why we are here).
We go look at bikes.
We think Max is a 20″ bike. He tries to ride one. It’s too big.
He thinks that means he just needs to keep trying other 20″ bikes until he finds the magic one that fits.
I try to explain that he needs the next size down.
He tries an 18″ and it fits. He doesn’t like the color.
It turns out that Wal-Mart only has one (that’s right one) 18″ in the whole store.
My naive optimistic wife says, “Maybe they have more in the back.”
It takes me 7 minutes to go find an actual employee.
Of course, he doesn’t work in bikes but he will go find a manager.
He disappears into the bermuda triangle, never to return.
We give up. Max is all upset.
To distract him, we go look at toys.
Max discovers that Bey Blades has come out with new Bey Figures.
Same toy concept – but it’s an action figure on top of the spinning top.
He had to have one.
He decides to spend his own money on one, woo hoo! I’m off the hook.
We look at girl toys, and Ella wants us to buy every baby toy for Lillie.
So sweet. Except lately, she and Max seem to have more fun with Lillie’s toys than Lillie does. If only I knew then what I know now.
I find my wife shopping for a birthday present for Ella’s friend who loves horses. Any horse Rebecca sees she is checking out and asking Ella about it.
Seriously people, that wasn’t on the list she gave me.
This is another issue.
Rebecca tells me what we are going to a store for.
I then treat it like a military operation.
I want to get to those items in as direct a route as we can.
No distractions. No stopping anywhere else.
Get the items and proceed to the extraction point.
Being in a store makes Rebecca remember all the other stuff she’s been thinking about buying, but never told me about.
This does not make for a very harmonious trip.
I really need to loosen up.
The really scary part was after Lillie was born.
You see, Ella was born premature, so with Lillie I was paranoid.
I wouldn’t let Rebecca off the couch while she was pregnant,
and after she delivered and came home she was recovering from her third C-section so I wouldn’t let her do much then either (other than take care of Lillie).
So it was probably a good 6 months since she had been in a store.
The first time she went shopping by herself I got a call from our credit card company.
“Mr. Greene? It’s Mastercard. We noticed some suspicious activity on your card today and wanted to call you before we processed the transaction.”
That was an interesting dinner table conversation when I got home.
Sending Rebecca into any store can be scary because she finds multiple things we “need” but that weren’t on her list!
Next we head to go get milk.
This should be simple, but it’s not.
Rebecca is working on weaning Lillie from breast feeding, and wants to start giving her some milk.
What kind of milk?
Almond milk doesn’t have enough fat in it. Oops, that’s lite Almond Milk. Let’s try regular.
Nope. Not enough fat.
“Lillie at 12 months almost weighs more than Ella at 4 1/2 years old. Maybe we don’t need much fat?”
I really should work on keeping my mouth shut about this stuff.
Apparently I don’t know anything about babies, what a surprise.
It turns out that babies need fat for brain development my wife tells me.
You see, while I am reading tons of stuff about growing my businesses my wife is reading about baby and kid stuff.
Then we try rice milk. Nope, that doesn’t work either.
What about regular whole cow’s milk? That has lots of fat, except my in laws own a health food store and they would go completely meshuggenah on us if we let their granddaughter drink actual cows milk.
Rebecca goes with both Almond and Rice milk and we will try both and see how they go.
By this time Lillie has gotten hungry. Maybe it was looking at all that milk.
Here is where my wife absolutely amazes me.
I may be a magician, but I have no freakin clue how she does this trick.
She holds Lillie in one arm. She holds a squeezable packet of organic baby food in the other.
She then manages to squeeze the packet one slurp at a time into Lillie’s mouth, without spilling one drop.
Did I mention she is also walking, yelling at Max & Ella, telling me what to do, and shopping at the same time?
Seriously people, this goes way beyond walking and chewing gum.
When I try feeding Lillie right from the packet (as opposed to putting it into a bowl and using a spoon), I make a huge mess, and Rebecca usually has to change Lillie’s entire outfit.
Then Rebecca notices that Lillie is missing a sock.
She hands Lillie to me, tells me to feed her, and keep the other two kids in line, while she goes back through the whole store – re-tracing our steps to find the missing sock.
Seriously? Can’t I just give you $1.99 for new socks and save the time, stress, and aggravation?
I guess not.
I cannot hold Lillie and feed her, I know my limits.
I stick her in the cart and feed her, and still manage to make a mess.
Max & Ella keep running in and out of the clothes section, playing hide and go seek.
I try not to yell too loudly.
They keep asking when mommy is coming back, and why did she leave again?
Max says, “Maybe the sock fell out in the cart.”
“No way Max. Then mommy would be wandering all over the store, stressed out for nothing.
She’d be really pissed.”
“But what if daddy? Maybe you should look.”
I look. The kid is right! Damn sock fell out in the cart. He could have said something 5 minutes ago.
I pray that Rebecca has her phone with her. I text her the good news. She doesn’t respond. Uh oh.
This isn’t looking good people.
I start thinking of excuses I can make when she gets back. Maybe Ella will have to go pee all of a sudden and get me out of this.
Rebecca comes back on her own (never got my text). She doesn’t look happy as she couldn’t find the sock.
I show her the sock.
You can insert your own string of expletives here. Let your imagination run wild, you won’t be far off.
The good news is she managed to find a birthday present on her search around the store which did seem to distract her from her aggravation about the sock.
Next we go look at costumes.
Ella finds the Disney princess costumes and wants them all.
I remind her that she already OWNS them ALL.
She has Rapunzel, Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, etc.
“Ok Daddy.” Thank God.
However they do not have Smurfette.
Now she’s all upset.
“I’m never going to get to be Smurfette, Daddy! What am I going to do?”
Dear Lord, when does it end? Rebecca promises Ella to find a Smurfette costume that fits her and Ella calms down.
Max is looking at the boy costumes (Rebecca already bought his. He is going to be the Skylander Giant Crusher. Thank G-d the costume doesn’t come with Crusher’s giant sledgehammer.)
“Look Daddy, a bow and arrow guy!” (Robin Hood).
“Look Daddy, a ninja!” (He was a ninja last year)
“Max, we’re not here to look at costumes for you, you already have yours.”
“But Daddy–”
“–No More Buts! Let’s go!”
“Daddy you said buts.”
“Ok Beavis, let’s go. Your mother’s exhausted.”
“Who’s Beavis?”
“Never mind.”
Finally, thank the Lord, we got out of Wal-Mart alive.
Now on to Toy-R-Us.
Rebecca once again swears she will never go back to Wal-Mart. I will keep you posted on that one!
