That Mom

When I was pregnant I daydreamed of the days when Wes and I could jump in the car and head off to do "errands." It seemed like such a novel idea to be able to run to the store or pick up dry cleaning... at my leisure...on a tuesday! I imagined me and my happy baby strolling through shops just window shopping the day away...what the HELL was I thinking!!!! Shopping with an infant is neither fun nor productive. Today I became "that mom", the one who picks up her screaming baby because she'd rather fumble with the carriage than allow other shoppers to hear him scream, the one with zero makeup on and a t-shirt that predates college, oh except in my version of the story the shirt is covered in spit up. Not quite sure where I took the wrong turn, but today's adventure was a clear indicator that, although Target is like a giant play date for mommy...its not such a fun place for Wes.

In my defense the trip started out in story book fashion. Wes was all buckled into his fancy Patriots shopping cart cover. Mind you he's not quite six months and he can't sit up independently yet, but how in gods name do you grocery shop with a stroller. I guess most people can pop the infant seat into the grocery cart and call it a day, but in my world 2 issues arise 1. I am 4 foot 11 and I can barely see over the shopping cart without a seat popped onto the top, and 2. Wes is already 18 pounds and 27" long you try picking that seat up! Any way I digress...we were all buckled in and happy, smiling at all the people who were oohing and ahhing over how cute his little smile is and asking where I got the snazzy shopping cart cover (Thanks Auntie Nikki), but it quickly went south when the cute little caterpillar toy we were playing with bopped us off the head (insert first freak out of the day). We quickly recovered and continued on our way...meltdown number 2 began when I would not allow him to play with the straw from my iced coffee. I began to rapidly throw items into my cart hoping to get out with at least 2 items from my list. At this point we are in full on tantrum mode...I am sure many of you know my profession, for those who don't I am a behavior specialist.... so what do I do to make the tantrum stop? I picked him up, completely reinforcing his behavior! Now I realize he's an infant, and yes he needed to be comforted, blah blah blah...but I was so that Mom who was going to practice what she preached and not give in...yep pretty much failed at my first attempt. Oh well...we made it home safe and with a few necessities. I have other things to thing about...like how I'm going to clean the spit up that dripped between the seats in the car...hmmm...Happy Friday All!

xoxo
Erin