Yes, Sir, Yes, Sir. Two Bags Full.

Yesterday was errand day. If you’ve never had the experience of running errands with a toddler, it’s quite an adventure. If you run errands for more than an hour or two, the child gets bored or exhausted, and you need to take a break. Otherwise, bad manners will result. I knew this going in.

We did errands anyway. Not just for two hours, mind you, but for eight. I didn’t want to do it that way, but sometimes you have to.

By hour number seven, it had been a long day for the both of us, and drama was in the air. She had started to act up at Home Depot, and the thought of making one last stop was discouraging. But, we needed toilet paper, and they sure don’t sell it there. I checked.

Onward to the super-mega-mart, where you can get almost everything under the sun. All I wanted was toilet paper. I envision how I can make this trip as quick as possible:

1) Put the Bunny in a cart;
2) Put toilet paper in the cart; and,
3) Pay at self-checkout.

In and out in less than five minutes. As we pull into the parking lot, I hear the dreaded words:

BUNNY: Mommy? I’m hungry. I’m staaarving. I wanna eat here.

And so we did. I had a salad, and she had a carton of blueberries. Her blueberry container boasted that she was consuming “Mighty Blues: The Powerful Snack”. With every blueberry she ate, she would display her muscles, thus confirming to everyone at the surrounding tables that she indeed was getting power from these Mighty Blues. Very cute and very entertaining. This “dinner and a show” made me hopeful that the rest of the night would go as smoothly.

It didn’t. After an impressive ballet-spin-gone-wrong and a more-impressive face plant in the middle of the dairy aisle, Bunny got put in the cart. She then went straight for the drama. Her “knee pads” hurt and she needed ice. When I refused, she copped an attitude, complete with bad manners and rudeness. I’m tired. She’s tired. It’s all downhill from here.

When we got to the register, I got her out of the cart, mainly because she had been using the lasagna-we-suddenly-needed as an ice pack. Bunny now went into full drama mode. So I asked her:

MOMMY BUNNY: When we came in here, you had good manners. Where did they go?
BUNNY: I dunno. The good ones musta changed into bad ones. Two bags of bad manners. That’s all I got.
MOMMY BUNNY: Well, you need to throw those bad manners away.
BUNNY: Okay.

And she does. She goes over to the trash can, and mimes throwing away the two bags of bad manners. She then reaches into her mouth and pulls out the imaginary bad manners and throws them away. She walks back over. She’s hunching with her hands behind her back, and she’s pacing. She looks like a mini Groucho Marx. It’s damn amusing.

MOMMY BUNNY: What are you doing?
BUNNY: I don’t have any manners yet. I don’t know how to act.
CLERK: How do you get your manners?
BUNNY: My bunnies give them to me.
CLERK: She’s four, isn’t she?

Finally, her imaginary bunnies gave her good manners. We’re in the car and on the road. Things were going well. One quick stop at the dump to throw away two pieces of wood, and then onward towards home…

Until Daddy Bunny called. He just made it into town, and he’s hungry. Do we want to meet for dinner? Hold on, let me ask her.

MOMMY BUNNY: When we get home, Bunny, you need to go potty, brush your teeth, and get ready for bed.
BUNNY: But Mommy! I’m so hungry! I’m staaarving!

I thought as much. Dinner it is.

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