Cryin' at Walmart

So, two weekends ago, I do believe I had a parental rite of passage. Hubby and I decided to head out to do some Christmas shopping with the little man in tow. This is not usually an issue since Haeden is generally happy to sit in the cart and flirt with passersby. He is also pretty good about entertaining himself by putting items into the back of the grocery cart or trying to pull things off of shelves. And if there is a free cookie involved... he's almost always an angel.

I really should have seen this coming though. I mean, does anyone ever go to Wal-Mart and actually leave in a good mood? I know I don't, so why should Haeden be any different? Well, apparently he's not. We entered through the garden area and I don't know if they were already preparing for Black Friday, or what, but they had rows and rows of bicycles set up. And behind those were the many battery-operated Power Wheels. Um, Haeden wanted them ALL. He didn't care that he was too small for every single one of them. The whining and squirming started almost immediately as he pointed in that direction and said, "BIIIII!" I tried to appease him by letting him sit in one of the Power Wheel Jeeps. However, since he can't sit still for more than 30 seconds, he wanted to move on pretty quickly, and Daddy was still busy checking out bike gears and breaks, or some such thing that made him oblivious to the noise Haeden was already making. When he eventually did take notice, he took the little bugger from me and sat him on the bike he was inspecting looking at. We pushed him around for a second and made all the usual VROOM VROOM sounds, but it did no good. Haeden's feet could not reach the pedals, his chubby little hands could not reach the handle bars. Little dude was pissed!

I don’t know why we thought he’d act any differently inside, but that’s exactly where we took him next. As soon as we reached the bikes, he immediately started to flip out again. I unsuccessfully tried to distract him with toy trucks! and stuffed animals!!??, but quickly realized that I needed to just get him away from the area altogether. He calmed down pretty quickly, but I was growing rather impatient walking around with Haeden on my hip and waiting on the Lord of the Bikes. I kept trying to peek around the corner at him, craning my neck to assert the “hurry the hell up glare” and simultaneously keep Haeden from spotting him or the bikes, but it wasn’t working. He was completely oblivious to my plight.
Eventually he found “the chosen one” and met me in one of the other aisles, bike in tow. Haeden took one look at the bike and the show started all over again. The whines turned to screams, the arms and legs began to flail and we were officially having our first full-on public tantrum.

You guys, I was THAT mom with THAT kid in Wal-Mart. I took one look at Dan and told him we were going to just see him at the car. I tried to walk as quickly as I could and hoped that he’d quiet down again once Hubby and the bike were out of sight, but he only got louder and louder. People may or may not have suffered some whiplash trying to get a look at all the commotion we HE was making as we walked past. I believe I heard a few people snickering, too, and can only hope that they were laughing with me (with sympathy, of course) and not at me.

Haeden kicked and screamed all the way out to the car. He even did the stiff arms and legs deal as I tried to buckle him into the car seat. Ohhhh, man, was he testing my patience. Finally, I had a moment of genius and handed him some goldfish crackers and he calmed right down. It was a Christmas Miracle.

Look at that face! He's so picked on and abused!