Thursday, December 18, 2008

Singing and shrieking

After the gym this morning, Sophie and I embarked on a four-stop errand extravaganza. Or that was the plan, anyway. When I picked her up from the gym nursery I was informed that she'd refused to eat breakfast and had been yawning all morning...facts that should have deterred me from my mission but sadly did not. I figured she'd nap in the car and then rally, so we continued on our errand quest. First we hit Costco, and despite only a 10 minute snooze on the way there, Sophie behaved brilliantly. Then we went next door to Target, and she lost her mind about five minutes in.

Public tantrums are really rare for Sophie, especially in a store. She usually loves chilling in the cart and people watching, and if she does start to fuss she can almost always be teased back into a good mood. But of course, I had asked way too much from her today, and by about Noon she was just done. I started singing "Twinkle Twinkle" like a madwoman, which often works as a distraction in these types of situations. And the most adorable thing was that she tried so hard, even in her hysterical state, to reign herself in. She couldn't quite get herself to stop crying, but she was still opening and closing her hands in the gesture we do to indicate the "twinkling stars" in the song. The look on her face was like, "This is all I got Mama, I can give you the hands but I have to scream while I do it." As we stood in line to pay for our purchases, I'm sure we were quite a sight...me trilling loudly and making diamond shapes on my forehead (as in the lyric "like a diamond in the sky" and not just because I felt like it...I'm not completely off my rocker) and Sophie red-faced and shrieking while pinching her hands open and shut like a little crab.

Funny thing is, people ask me all the time why I do most of my shopping on the Internet. I figure they must not have small children.

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