Mother Announces that Snowy Errands with Toddler Do Not Rock

Since I have a case of W.B. I decided to forgo the whole writing thing for a day and instead focus on the beautiful snow falling outside. I wanted to bake and finish a long overdue library book. But before I could do any baking or relaxing I had to head to the store and get some supplies.

First up was a trip to Kmart. After a long arduous search for the gold tinsel that we must have for our tree, I was told Kmart was the place for all things Christmas. The drive across town was quick but, then I missed the entrance to the store and narrowly missed getting on 95. Already a parking lot because hey! It’s DC and we have had two snowflakes fall in the last four hours. Heavens to Mercatroid! Snow! We must all drive like idiots because two flakes have fallen! Still it was to Kmart we must go. H needs his gold tinsel on the tree. I swear he hurls it on the tree with the same effect that a cat does when it coughs up a hairball, but he loves it and I love him, so I had to find some gold, not silver, tinsel.

Ah, Kmart, a place I never go. It's a sad little run down store. The sales people though were abundant and willing to help me find my gold tinsel. Once they stopped being smarty-pants about things at least. I think that fact that I was walking around mouth open, eyes glazed at all the decorations (you can have an entirely purple Martha Stewart Christmas thank you very much! Or pink!) might have helped me out. I had to steer the smirking sales guy away from garland hanging behind my head. Then the gold beads in strands. NO! Tinsel! The strands of shiny metallic, well I don’t know, plastic? Some non-enviro-friendly product I’m sure. Do you have it? I NEED it! Indeed they did and I bought the whole supply. Just in case you know an apocalypse occurs and we need to repopulate the world with gold tinsel and such.

I then aimlessly wandered around the store for a bit picking up forgotten items for the house until I realized something. T.D. was missing a shoe. Or rather a very expensive Umi boot that I’m reviewing. These shoes are fantastic! They are also expensive. This was now a dire situation. We had been all over the entire store! Now we had to backtrack and look under racks? I began to sweat and tried to curb the cursing as T.D. said over and over , “Oh no! Shoe!!!” Yeah, kid, Oh no. Shoe. I enlisted the help of a salesperson but couldn’t find the shoe. I began to give up hope as I retraced our steps and went down aisle after aisle again. Back through the holiday decorations, back through Martha Stewart land, and back through the toys. Finally, after giving up all hope completely I spied a little lime green circle (the trademark to the Umi sole) under a rack of men’s flannel shoes. Exactly the spot we were in when we noticed the shoe was gone. How did I miss it?! Relieved we checked out quickly and left the store. T.D. was beginning to twitch and growl in the cart.

Outside, the snow was coming down harder now. I struggled to wrangle her into her car seat without doing a parking lot flip out. I was so close to losing it all together after the fourth attempt to get her wiggly yet boneless body back into the car seat. Mommy says, this is NOT a game pumpkin, I said through gritted teeth. No fear though, no child was harmed in this process. Despite my wanting at one point to just go white trash nuts on her in the snowy parking lot. Snow muffles screams right?

Ever a glutton for punishment I plied her with snacks and pressed onward! We fought some more at the bank drive up window and then again as I wrestled her into the stroller to head to another store. Why did I think this was a good idea? Done with the errands we headed home. I sighed a sigh of relief and with renewed optimism we pulled into our driveway. I let T.D. out of the car seat and tried to get her to climb out of the car. She became like fruitcake in December. Positively unmovable. The snow was mesmerizing her. I tried to play along but after ten minutes of standing in the snow, with snow blowing into the car and a bit of a frozen behind, I had had enough. I dragged her out of the car and onto the sidewalk. She just stood there. I placed her at the front door and tried to nudge her inside. Nothing doing. I shut the front door on her then and said, “Fine. Don’t come inside. Just watch the snow from the steps. Fine. The rest of us will be warm inside.” Twenty seconds later I opened the door and she was still standing there mesmerized. I scooped her up and brought her inside.

11 a.m. and I felt done. I called it a day. When is nap-time again?

UPDATE- As I type this the reams of gold tinsel sit on the table mocking me. They are not on the tree? No. They. Are. Not. Am I bitter because I braved the elements (or as H put it, subjected our child to abuse by taking her out in such treacherous weather/a.k.a two flakes on the ground while our neighbors sit safely in their bomb shelters eating 10 year old canned corn)and a rather cantankerous toddler to get this gold tinsel? Maybe just a little.