Major Meltdown

This is for all you moms who wonder if other people's kids misbehave in public places the way your kids do......the answer is YES! :)

So it's Sunday afternoon. Our tradition over the past several months is to do the grocery shopping on Sunday after church. In the most recent weeks, I have decided to take Carter and get him used to sitting in the shopping cart (as opposed to running all over the store). We made it to the store. I was armed with fruit snacks, ring pops, and promises of watching cartoons when we got back home. It worked.....almost. We had made it through all of the aisles at the store. Carter sat in the buggy until the last aisle and then he wanted out of the cart. I figured what the heck....we're almost done. We got in line and then I realized the mistake I had made by allowing him to get out of the shopping cart. He of course instantly made a beeline for the candy screaming "Tindy tindy!" which is Carter speak for candy. On a sidenote, I think it's absolutely cruel for grocery stores to put the candy in the one place you have to stand still long enough to unload your cart. It's not like you can just breeze through there. It takes a good several minutes to unload all of your stuff. Anyway, I digress....he began rummaging through Kit Kat bars and skittles. Finally he picked up a 3 musketeers (like mother, like son). When I reached down to get it out of his hands and put it back on the shelf, he let out the most shrill scream I had ever heard! Literally everyone in the front of the store turned around and stared at us. I promise one lady looked like she was about the dial 911 because she thought Carter was either severely hurt or somebody was attempting to kidnap him. When she realized he was screaming over candy, the look on her face said "Why doesn't she just give the boy what he wants". She didn't realized he'd already eaten two suckers, a bag of fruit snacks, and hadn't eaten lunch yet. So I stood my ground. Even when the shrieking continued and store employees had the look of we-can't-wait-for-them-to-leave. One of the nice baggers even blew up a balloon animal for Carter. It did fortunately seem to calm him down. As I'm strapping him in the car (and by this point, he is calm and happy), an older lady pulled in the parking place next to us. When she got out and saw Carter, she said that he was so precious. I told her that we had just had a major meltdown in the store. She said she could remember those days and that it does get better. Then Carter looks at me and says "I sowee mommy" (I'm sorry mommy). I thought in the grand scheme of things, this is not so bad. Now as I'm typing, I look over at Carter. He is sound asleep on the couch cuddled up with his blanket with a look of innocence on his little face. The bad moments are far outweighed by the good moments. And right now, it doesn't get much better than this.