A love affair...

With the lawn mower...

If you notice, these pictures were taken while Pierce was in his car seat, which of course means that he had the lawn mower IN the car. After dinner, I realized that we were out of milk and bread. I figured Pierce and I would make a quick trip to the grocery store before bedtime to pick up a couple things. Well, he had been playing with his lawn mower for about 10 minutes and I didn't think it would be a big deal to get in the car and leave. Boy, was I wrong. He wanted to bring it with him IN THE CAR! Ok, no biggie, I'll give in (this time!) So we get in the car and pull out of the driveway and he is literally hugging the lawn mower, like it's some long lost friend or something. I start to think, "Oh man, this might be a problem!" We get to the parking lot and he starts freaking out when I park...oh yes wait, it gets better. I get him out of the car (while he's clutching the lawn mower mind you) and try to carry him in the store. Oh NO!! That just will.not.do. He wants to push the stupid thing all the way from the car to the door. Whatever, it's noisy outside and I oblige (again.) So I think (don't know why I try) when we get IN the store, he'll let me put him in the cart WITH his lawn mower and we'll get our short list of things and be out of there. I'm sure you know what happened....yes, another hissy fit. At this point, I have about totally lost it and just don't care what people will think so I let him push the lawn mower around...the ENTIRE store! We were in there a good 20 minutes! He was like the Energizer bunny...he kept going and going and going!!! Some people (the ones with kids) thought he was absolutely adorable and thought it was funny. I could tell others were thinking, "What the heck is that mother doing letting her son push around that obnoxiously loud lawn mower in HERE for?" Let me just tell you, when you become a parent, you pick your battles in order to avoid having a meltdown (or for that matter, to avoid your CHILD from having a meltdown.) Some kids carry around a blanket, some carry around a doll, my child just happened to choose on this particular day...a lawn mower. The lady in the checkout line in front of me thought it was great and said, "Looks like he's in training!" Music to Sheldon's ears I'm sure =) On the plus side, Pierce was very well behaved when he was pushing it around; he didn't run into anybody, he followed me exactly where I went, and I could always hear where he was. I just hope that the people I annoyed don't remember my face, I mean I still SORT of care what people think =)