Went to the store to do some Christmas shopping today.... I realized with the holiday drawing nearer, this would not be an easy task. What I didn't realize, was that the complications would all come from having a 9 month old in tow.
Miles is a big boy now, at least as far as shopping carts and car seats go. So, when we arrived at the local department store around lunchtime, Miles instantly new it was time to get out of the car seat. Before I could even get the seat unbuckled, he was wiggling and squirming to get out. I grabbed his cart cozy (a protective, quilted, seat cover for the child seat in most shopping carts), my purse and keys and hip saddled the baby.
The store has an unusual type of cart where the basket is placed vertically behind the infant/child seat, so the kid sits out in front as you push. Of course all the other non-germophobic moms just threw their toddlers into the seats and were off long before I even had the cozy tied. Ten minutes later, baby was loaded and we were officially shopping.
I decided to start with apparel since it was at the front of the store. Unfortunately, the aisles are made barely wide enough to fit the carts through, so everything that was hanging from a rack or on a shelf was well within Miles' reach. He took full advantage of this by holding his arms out as though pretending to be a plane and grabbed at everything we passed by. Several times I had to stop and put back articles of clothing he was double fisting.
The worst came when we were over in house wares, and I thought I would leave him out in the main aisle so as not to incur any damaged goods purchases. I stepped down the aisle for 2 seconds and came back to a pile of men's sale sweaters lying in a big heap on the floor in front of their shelf. After a quick clean-up we headed over to toys and took our time browsing. We avoided making any toy purchases and I sped swiftly by the infant clothing so as not to piss Daddy off anymore today. He was not having a good day at work and my excessive "Miles Stuff" shopping sprees were soon to take a toll on our bank account and marriage.
Finally, Miles had gotten bored with grabbing at things, or I had learned better to keep them out of his way. At last I was able to shop undisturbed and he was content to suck on four of his fingers or so I thought. What we've learned about our outings in the past months is that our son has a bit of an infectious smile, so we are quite used to people coming up to him or directing their attention his way. All of a sudden I noticed the whispered comments coming more frequently. I finally stopped the cart and walked around to the front to see what all the fuss was about.
It was approximately 2:30, about a half an hour past nap time, and my son had fallen asleep on the side railing of his seat. Under his head appeared to be a mock pillow made up of a rolled up, tan, argyle sweater that was apparently one of his purchases....not mine. I was heading toward the register and did not want to buy the $30 pillow so I looked for a place to ditch it. As I gently pulled it from under his head, I noticed the large pool of drool that had accumulated on the front. I neatly folded the sweater up backwards (drool inside) and set it on the nearest shelf.
Twenty minutes later after the checkout line, I successfully made it out of the store without my car seat shoplifting anything (that's another story entirely). I packed up the Christmas purchases and baby and headed home for a well deserved nap.........for him and me both.
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