the whim wham life: really real life

{Shopping Before Bean}

The fox fur could be an exaggeration, but I vaguely remember the styled hair as being a real thing}

{Shopping After Bean}

aka Harry Houdini reincarnated.

Seriously.

Our Vegas cart-seat escape show is in the works.

And I'm only 96% sure that's chocolate on my dress.

I used to naively chuckle at the frazzled mothers hustling their offspring through the aisles of...anywhere.

(basically, any public building with shelves and things to grab off those shelves)

My Target Retreat bubble of isolation could be popped by so much as the seemingly shrill gurgle of a newborn's coo, and I'd wheel in the opposite direction,

clicking my judgmental heels towards the fancy-free lanes of life filled with things like, "Fragile," and "Look Don't Touch."

There were many peaceful, tantrum-free excursions during those years among the land of humans who don't internally combust when they have to put a pair of pink glitter mary-janes back on the shelf. I'll admit that.

But, oh how those years were lonely!

When I was all by myself, leisurely carting through without a care in the world...

Lonely!

With no one to fling the entire contents of my purse onto the conveyer belt for me.

Lonely!

Or be the Thelma to my Louise in a Mentos pilfering spree at checkout stands across the state.

Lonely!

Luuuuuuhhhhh-Ohhhhhh-Nnnn-Eeeeee-Leeeeeeey

Funny how something starts sounding unreal the more you say it?

But until you've heard a 16 month old cheer you on as the basket gets filled with "NANAAAAAS" (bananas), "COOOOOKAHHHS" (graham crackers, which he thinks are cookies), and "BASthKKKETBALLS", (oranges/melons/anything round like a basketball),

well,

it's just all a bit unreal.

Especially, the love you can have for a toddler wailing in the key of firetruck engine through aisle 8 while you try and calm him down by singing " The Hip Hop Bunny Came Today" from the Easter episode of Dora the Explorer.

unbelievable.

Don't worry, I'm laughing at myself too.

xoxo

{Bon Bon}